The Spanish Pioneers

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THE SPANISH PIONEERS

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FRANCISCO PIZARRO.

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THE

SPANISH PIONEERS

BY
CHARLES F. LUMMIS

AUTHOR OP ** A NEW MBXICO DAVID/* ** STRANGE
CORNERS or OUR COUNTRY/' ETC

]Entt0tc8teD

SIXTH EDITION

CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.

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By Charus F. Lummh

A.D. 189s

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TO

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KBBP CHIVALRY AUVS IN OUR LB8S

SINGLB-HBARTBD DAYS:

ELIZABETH BACON CUSTER

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In pronouncing the Spanish names give—

a the sound of ah
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The views presented in this book have
already taken their place in historical litera-
ture, but they are certainly altogether new
ground for a popular work. Because it is
new, some who have not fully followed the
recent march of scientific investigation may
fear that it is not authentic. I can only say
that the estimates and statements embodied
in this volume are strictly true, and that I
hold myself ready to defend them from the
standpoint of historical science.

I do this, not merely from the motive
of personal regard toward the author, but
especially in view of the merits of his work,
its value for the youth of the present and of
the coming generations.

AD. F. BANDELIER.

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PREFACE.

IT is because I believe that every other
young Saxon-American loves fair play
and admires heroism as much as I do, that
this book has been written. That we have not
given justice to the Spanish Pioneers is simply
because we have been misled. They made a
record unparalleled ; but our text-books have
not recognized that fact, though they no
longer dare dispute it Now, thanks to the
New School of American History, we are
coming to the truth, — a truth which every
manly American will be glad to know. In
this country of free and brave men, race-
prejudice, the most ignorant of all human
ignorances, must die out. We must respect
manhood more than nationality, and admire
it for its own sake wherever found, — and it is
found everywhere. The deeds that hold the
world up are not of any one blood. We may
be born anywhere, — that is a mere accident ;

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12 PREFACE.

but to be heroes we must grow by means
which are not accidents nor provincialisms,
but the birthright and glory of humanity.

We love manhood ; and the Spanish
pioneering of the Americas was the largest
and longest and most marvellous feat of man-
hood in all history. It was not possible for
a Saxon boy to learn that truth in my boy-
hood; it is enormously difficult, if possible,
now. The hopelessness of trying to get from
any or all English text-books a just picture
of the Spanish hero in the New World made
me resolve that no other young American
lover of heroism and justice shall need to
grope so long in the dark as I had to ; and
for the following glimpses into the most in-
teresting of stories he has to thank me less
than that friend of us both, A. F. Bandelier,
the master of the New School. Without the
light shed on early America by the scholar-
ship of this great pupil of the great Humboldt,
my book could not have been written, — nor
by me without his generous personal aid.

C. F. L.

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CONTENTS.

I. S^t Stoafb Stotji.

I. The Pioneer Nation . • •

17

II. A Muddled Geography • •

• 25

III. Columbus the Finder . • •

. 36

IV. Making Geography ....

. 43

V. The Chapter op Conquest .

, 56

VI. A Girdle round the World .

71

VII. Spain in the United States .

78

/III. Two Continents Mastered . .

90

II. Apecimen pionms.

I. The First American Traveller . . loi

II. The Greatest American Traveller 117

III. The War op the Rock 125

IV. The Storming op the Sky-City . . 135
V. The Soldier Poet 144

VI. The Pioneer Missionaries .... 149

VII. The Church-Builders in New Mexico 158

VIII. Alvarado's Leap 170

IX. The American Golden Fleece . . 181

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14 CONTENTS.

III. Sije (Btiatesrt (Eonqttest.

CaiAPTBR PAGB

I. The Swineherd op Truxillo . • • 203

II. The Man who would not give up . 215

III. Gaining Ground 225

IV. Peru as it was 238

V. The Conquest op Peru 246

VI. The Golden Ransom 257

VII. Atahualpa's Treachery and Death 265
VIII. Founding a Nation.— The Siege op

Cuzco 275

IX. The Work of Traitors 284

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THE BROAD STORY.

HOW AMERICA WAS FOUND AND TAMED.

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THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

I.

THE PIONEER NATION.

IT is now an established fact of history that the
Norse rovers had found and made a few expe-
ditions to North America long before Columbus.
For the historian nowadays to look upon that Norse
discovery as a myth, or less than a certainty, is to
confess that he has never read the Sagas. The
Norsemen came, and even camped in the New World,
before the year looo ; but they only camped. They
built no towns, and practically added to the world's
knowledge nothing at all. They did nothing to en-
title them to credit as pioneers. The honor of giv-
ing America to the world belongs to Spain, — the
credit not only of discovery, but of centuries of such
pioneering as no other nation ever paralleled in any
land. It is a fascinating story, yet one to which our
histories have so far done scant justice. History on
true principles was an unknown science until within
a century ; and public opinion has long been ham-
pered by the narrow statements and false conclusions

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1 8 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

of closet Students. Some of these men have been
not only honest but most charming writers ; but their
very popularity has only helped to spread their errore
wider. But their day is past, and the beginnings of
new light have come. No student dares longer re-
fer to Prescott or Irving, or any of the class of which
they were the leaders, as authorities in history ; they
rank to-day as fascinating writers of romance, and
nothing more. It yet remains for some one to make
as popular the truths of American history as the
fables have been, and it may be long before an un-
mistaken Prescott appears ; but meantime I should
like to help young Americans to a general grasp of
the truths upon which coming histories will be based.
This book is not a history ; it is simply a guideboard
to the true point of view, the broad idea, — starting
from which, those who are interested may more safely
go forward to the study of details, while those who
can study no farther may at least have a general
understanding of the most romantic and gallant
chapter in the history of America.

We have not been taught how astonishing it was
that one nation should have earned such an over-
whelming share in the honor of giving us America ;
and yet when we look into the matter, it is a very
startling thing. There was a great Old World, full of
civilization : suddenly a New World was found, — the
most important and surprising discovery in the whole
annals of mankind. One would naturally suppose that
the greatness of such a discovery would stir the intel-
ligence of all the civilized nations about equally, and

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THE PIONEER NATION,

»9

that they would leap with common eagerness to avail
themselves of the great meaning this discovery had
for humanity. But as a matter of &ct it was not so.
Broadly speaking, all the enterprise of Europe was
confined to one nation, — and that a nation by no
means the richest or strongest. One nation practically
had the glory of discovering and exploring America, of
changing the whole world's ideas of geography, and
making over knowledge and business all to herself for
a century and a half. And Spain was that nation.

It was, indeed, a man of Genoa who gave us
America ; but he came as a Spaniard, — from Spain,
on Spanish faith and Spanish money, in Spanish ships
and with Spanish crews ; and what he tbund he took
possession of in the name of Spain. Think what a
kingdom Ferdinand and Isabella had then besides
their little garden in Europe, — an untrodden half
world, in which a score of civilized nations dwell
to-day, and upon whose stupendous area the newest
and greatest of nations is but a patch ! What a dizzi-
ness would have seized Columbus could he have fore-
seen the inconceivable plant whose unguessed seeds
he held that bright October morning in 1492 !

It was Spain, too, that sent out the accidental
Florentine whom a German printer made godfather
of a half world that we are barely sure he ever saw,
and are fully sure he deserves no credit for. To
name America after Amerigo Vespucci was such an
ignorant injustice as seems ridiculous now; but, at
all events, Spain sent him who gave his name to the
New World,

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20 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

Columbus did little beyond finding America,
which was indeed glory enough for one life. But
of the gallant nation which made possible his dis-
covery there were not lacking heroes to carry out
the work which that discovery opened. It was a
century before Anglo-Saxons seemed to waken
enough to learn that there really was a New World,
and into that century the flower of Spain crowded
marvels of achievement. She was the only Euro-
pean nation that did not drowse. Her mailed
explorers overran Mexico and Peru, grasped their
incalculable riches, and made those kingdoms in-
alienable parts of Spain. Cortez had conquered
and was colonizing a savage country a dozen times
as large as England years before the first English-
speaking expedition had ever seen the mere coast
where it was to plant colonies in the New World ;
and Pizarro did a still greater work. Ponce de
Leon had taken possession for Spain of what is now
one of the States of our Union a generation before
any of those regions were seen by Saxons. That
first traveller in North America, Alvar Nunez Cabeza
de Vaca, had walked his unparalleled way across
the continent from Florida to the Gulf of California
half a century before the first foot of our ancestors
touched our soil. Jamestown, the first English set-
tlement in America, was not founded until 1607, and
by that time the Spanish were permanently estab-
lished in Florida and New Mexico, and absolute
masters of a vast territory to the south. They had
already discovered, conquered, and partly colonized

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THE PIONEER NATlON, 21

inland America from northeastern Kansas to Buenos
Ayres, and from ocean to ocean. Half of the United
States, all Mexico, Yucatan, Central America, Vene-
zuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Chile, New
Granada, and a huge area besides, were Spanish by
the time England had acquired a few acres on the
nearest edge of America. Language could scarcely
overstate the enormous precedence of Spain over aU
other nations in the pioneering of the New World.
They were Spaniards who first saw and explored the
greatest gulf in the world ; Spaniards who discovered
the two greatest rivers; Spaniards who found the
greatest ocean ; Spaniards who first knew that there
were two continents of America; Spaniards who
first went round the world ! They were Spaniards
who had carved their way into the far interior of our
own land, as well as of all to the south, and founded
their cities a thousand miles inland long before the
first Anglo-Saxon came to the Atlantic seaboard.
That early Spanish spirit of finding out was fairly
superhuman. Why, a poor Spanish lieutenant with
twenty soldiers pierced an unspeakable desert and
looked down upon the greatest natural wonder of
America or of the world — the Grand Cafion of
the Colorado — three full centuries before any
" American " eyes saw it ! And so it was from
Colorado to Cape Horn. Heroic, impetuous, im-
prudent Balboa had walked that awful walk across
the Isthmus, and found the Pacific Ocean, and built
on its shores the first ships that were ever made in
the Americas, and sailed that unknown sea, and had

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22 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

been dead more than half a century before Drake
and Hawkins saw it.

England's lack of means, the demoralization fol-
lowing the Wars of the Roses, and religious dissen-
sions were the chief causes of her torpidity then.
When her sons came at last to the eastern verge of
the New World they made a brave record ; but they
were never called upon to face such inconceivable
hardships, such endless dangers as the Spaniards
had faced. The wilderness they conquered was
savage enough, truly, but fertile, well wooded, well
watered, and full of game; while that which the
Spaniards tamed was such a frightful desert as no
human conquest ever overran before or since, and
peopled by a host of savage tribes to some of whom
the petty warriors of King Philip were no more to
be compared than a fox to a panther. The Apaches
and the Araucanians would perhaps have been no
more than other Indians had they been transferred
to Massachusetts; but in their own grim domains
they were the deadliest savages that Europeans ever
encountered. For a century of Indian wars in the
east there were three centuries and a half in the
southwest. In one Spanish colony (in Bolivia) as
many were slain by the savages in one massacre
as there were people in New York city when the
war of the Revolution began ! If the Indians in
the east had wiped out twenty-two thousand set-
tlers in one red slaughter, as did those at Sorata,
it would have been well up in the eighteen-hundreds
before the depleted colonies could have untied the

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THE PIONEER NATION. 33

uncomfortable apron-strings of the mother coun-
try, and begun national housekeeping on their own
account.

When you know that the greatest of English text-
books has not even the name of the man who first
sailed around the world (a Spaniard), nor of the
man who discovered Brazil (a Spaniard), nor of
him who discovered California (a Spaniard), nor
of those Spaniards who first found and colonized in
what is now the United States, and that it has a
hundred other omissions as glaring, and a hundred
histories as untrue as the omissions are inexcusable,
you will understand that it is high time we should
do better justice than did our fathers to a subject
which should be of the first interest to all real
Americans.

The Spanish were not only the first conquerors of
the New World, and its first colonizers, but also its
first civilizers. They built the first cities, opened the
first churches, schools, and universities ; brought the
first printing-presses, made the first books; wrote
the first dictionaries, histories, and geographies, and
brought the first missionaries; and before New
England had a real newspaper, Mexico had a sev-
enteenth-century attempt at one !

One of the wonderful things about this Spanish
pioneering — almost as remarkable as the pioneering
itself — was the humane and progressive spirit which
marked it from first to last. Histories of the sort
long current speak of that hero-nation as cruel to
the Indians ; but, in truth, the record of Spain in

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24 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

that respect puts us to the blush. The legislation
of Spain in behalf of the Indians every\iv'here was
incomparably more extensive, more comprehensive,
more systematic, and more humane than that of
Great Britain, the Colonies, and the present United
States all combined. Those first teachers gave the
Spanish language and Christian faith to a thousand
aborigines, where we gave a new language and re-
ligion to one. There have been Spanish schools
for Indians in America since 1524. By 1575 —
nearly a century before there was a printing-press
in English America — many books in twelve dififerent
Indian languages had been printed in the city of
Mexico, whereas in our history John Eliot's Indian
Bible stands alone; and three Spanish universities
in America were nearly rounding out their century
when Harvard was founded. A surprisingly large
proportion of the pioneers of America were college
men; and intelligence went hand in hand with
heroism in the early settlement of the New World.

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A MUDDLED GEOGRAPHY. 35

II.

A MUDDLED GEOGRAPHY.

THE least of the difficulties which beset the
finders of the New World was tlie then tre-
mendous voyage to reach it. Had that three thou-
sand miles of unknown sea been the chief obstacle,
civilization would have overstepped it centuries
before it did. It was human ignorance deeper
than the Atlantic, and bigotry stormier than its
waves, which walled the western horizon of Europe
for so long. But for that, Columbus himself would
have found America ten years sooner than he did ;
and for that matter, America would not have waited
for Columbus's five-times-great-grandfather to be
bom. It was really a strange thing how the rich-
est half of the world played so long at hide-and-
seek with civilization ; and how at last it was found,
through the merest chance, by those who sought
something entirely different. Had America waited
to be discovered by some one seeking a new con-
tinent, it might be waiting yet.

Despite the fact that long before Columbus va-
grant crews of half a dozen different races had
already reached the New World, they had left

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26 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

neither mark on America nor result in civilization ;
and Europe, at the very brink of the greatest dis-
covery and the greatest events in history, never
dreamed of it. Columbus himself had no imagin-
ings of America. Do you know what he started
westward to find? Asia.

The investigations of recent years have greatly
changed our estimates of Columbus. The tendency
of a generation ago was to transform him to a demi-
god, — an historical figure, fEiultless, rounded, all
noble. That was absurd ; for Columbus was only a
man, and all men, however great, fall short of per-
fection. The tendency of the present generation
is to go to the other extreme, — to rob him of
every heroic quality, and make him out an unhanged
pirate and a contemptible accident of fortune ; so
that we are in a fair way to have very little Colum-
bus left. But this is equally unjust and unscientific.
Columbus in his own field was a great man despite
his failings, and far from a contemptible one.

To understand him, we must first have some gen-
eral understanding of the age in which he lived.
To measure how much of an inventor of the great
idea he was, we must find out what the world's ideas
then were, and how much they helped or hindered
him.

In those far days geography was a very curious
affair indeed. A map of the world then was some-
thing which very few of us would be a^ble to identify
at all ; for all the wise men of all the earth knew less
of the world's topography than an eight-year old

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A MUDDLED GBOGRAPHY. 27

schoolboy knows to-day. It had been decided at
last that the world was not flat, but round, — though
even that fundamental knowledge was not yet old ;
but as to what composed half the globe, no man
alive knew. Westward from Europe stretched the
"Sea of Darkness/' and beyond a little way none
knew what it was or contained. The variation of
the compass was not yet understood. Everything
was largely guess-work, and groping in the dark.
The unsafe littie "ships" of the day dared not
venture out of sight of land, for there was nothing
reliable to guide them back; and you will laugh
at one reason why they were afraid to sail out into
the broad western sea, — they feared that they might
unknowingly get over the edge, and that ship and
crew might fall off into space ! Though they knew
the world was roundish, the attraction of gravitation
was not yet dreamed of; and it was supposed that
if one got too far over the upper side of the ball
one would drop off!

Still, it was a matter of general belief that there
was land in that unknown sea. That idea had been
growing for more than a thousand years, — for by
the second century it began to be felt that there
were islands beyond Europe. By Columbus's time
the map-makers generally put on their rude charts
a great many guess-work islands in the Sea of Dark-
ness. Beyond this swarm of islands was supposed
to lie the east coast of Asia, — and at no enormous
distance, for the real size of the world was under-
estimated by one third. Geography was in its mere

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28 THE SPANISH PtONBERS,

infancy ; but it was engaging the attention and study
of very many scholars who were learned for their day.
Each of them put his studious guessing into maps,
which varied astonishingly from one another.

But one thing was accepted : there was land
somewhere to the west^ — some said a few islands,
some said thousands of islands, but all said land of
some sort. So Columbus did not invent the idea;
it had been agreed upon long before he was bom.
The question was not if there was a New World, but
if it was possible or practicable to reach it without
sailing over the jumping-ofF place or encountering
other as sad dangers. The world said No ; Colum-
bus said Yes, — and that was his claim to greatness.
He was not an inventor, but an accomplisher ; and
even what he accomplished physically was less
remarkable than his faith. He did not have to
teach Europe that there was a new country, but
to believe that he could get to that country ; and
his faith in himself and his stubborn courage in
making others believe in him was the greatness
of his character. It took less of a man to make
the final proof than to convince the public that
it was not utter foolhardiness to attempt the proof
at all.

Christopher Columbus, as we call him (as Colon ^
he was better known in his own day), was bom in
Genoa, Italy, the son of Dominico Colombo, a wool-
comber, and Suzanna Fontanarossa. The year of
his birth is not certain ; but it was probably about
^ Pronounced C&-15n, — the Spanish form*

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A MUDDLED GEOGRAPHY, 39

1446. Of his boyhood we know nothing, and little
enough of all his early life, — though it is certain
that he was active, adventurous, and yet very stu-
dious. It is said that his father sent him for awhile
to the University of Pavia ; but his college course
could not have lasted very long. Columbus himself
tells us that he went to sea at fourteen years of age.
But as a sailor he was able to continue the studies
which interested him most, — geography and kindred
topics. The details of his early seafaring are very
meagre; but it seems certain that he sailed
to England, Iceland, Guinea, and Greece, — which
made a man then far more of a traveller than does
a voyage round the world nowadays ; and with this
broadening knowledge of men and lands he was
gaining such grasp of navigation, astronomy, and
geography as was then to be had.

It is interesting to speculate how and when
Columbus first conceived an idea of such stupen-
dous importance. It was doubtless not until he
was a mature and ex- ^

perienced man, who '^^

had become not only ' j • A • Jf.
a skilled sailor, but ^T /\^ V
one familiar with what ^^ 2^ ^^ J

other sailors had done. jCti aLi^wN O
The Madeiras and the /

Azores had been dis- Autograph of Chmtopher Columbu..

covered more than a century. Prince Henry, the
Navigator (that great patron of early exploration),
was sending his crews down the west coast of

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30 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

Africa, — for at that time it was not even known
what the lower half of Africa was. These expe-
ditions were a great help to Columbus as well as
to the world's knowledge. It is almost certain,
too, that when he was in Iceland he must have
heard something of the legends of the Norse rovers
who had been to America. Everywhere he went
his alert mind caught some new encouragement,
direct or indirect, to the great resolve which was
half unconsciously forming in his mind.

About 1473 Columbus wandered to Portugal; and
there formed associations which had an influence
on his future. In time he found a wife, Felipa
Moniz, the mother of his son and chronicler Diego.
As to his married life there is much uncertainty,
and whether it was creditable to him or the reverse.
It is known from his own letters that he had other
children than Diego, but they are left in obscurity.
His wife is understood to have been a daughter of
the sea-captain known as " The Navigator," whose
services were rewarded by making him the first
governor of the newly discovered island of Porto
Santo, off Madeira. It was the most natural thing
in the world that Columbus should presently pay a
visit to his adventurous father-in-law; and it was,
perhaps, while in Porto Santo on this visit that he
began to put his great thoughts in more tangible
shape.

With men like "the world-seeking Genoese," a
resolve like that, once formed, is as a barbed arrow,
— difficult to be plucked out. From that day on he

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A MUDDLED GEOGRAPHY. 31

knew no rest. The central idea of his life was
** Westward ! Asia ! *' and he began to work for its
realization. It is asserted that with a patriotic
intention he hastened home to make fiist offer of
his services to his native land. But Genoa was not
looking for new worlds, and declined his proffer.
Then he laid his plans before John II. of Portugal.
King John was charmed with the idea ; but a coun-
cil of his wisest men assured him that the plan was
ridiculously foolhardy. At last he sent out a secret
expedition, which after sailing out of sight of shore
soon lost heart and returned without result. When
Columbus learned of this treachery, he was so in-
dignant that he left for Spain at once, and there
interested several noblemen and finaUy the Crown
itself in his audacious hopes. But after three years
of profound deliberation, a junta ^ of astronomers
and geographers decided that his plan was absurd
and impossible, — the islands could not be reached.
Disheartened, Columbus started for France; but
by a lucky chance tarried at an Andalusian monas-
tery, where he won the guardian, Juan Perez de
Marchena, to his views. This monk had been con-
fessor to the queen ; and through his urgent inter-
cession the Crown at last sent for Columbus, who
returned to court. His plans had grown within him
till they almost overbalanced him, and he seems to
have forgotten that his discoveries were only a hope
and not yet a fact. Courage and persistence he
certainly had ; but we could wish that now he had
^ Pronounced HoonAa\i»

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32 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

been a trifle more modest. When the king asked on
what terms he would make the voyage, he replied :
"That you make me an admiral before I start;
that I be viceroy of all the lands that I shall find ;
and that I receive one tenth of all the gain." Strong
demands, truly, for the poor wool-comber's son of
Genoa to speak to the dazzling king of Spain !

Ferdinand promptly rejected this bold demand ;
and in January, 1492, Columbus was actually on his
way to France to try to make an impression there,
when he was overtaken by a messenger who brought
him back to court. It is a very large debt that we owe
to good Queen Isabella, for it was due to her strong
personal interest that Columbus had a chance to find
the New World. When all science frowned, and
wealth withheld its aid, it was a woman's persistent
faith — aided by the Church — that saved history.

There has been a great deal of equally unscientific
writing done for and against that great queen. Some
have tried to make her out a spotless saint, — a rather
hopeless task to attempt in behalf of any human
being, — and others picture her as sordid, merce-
nary, and in no wise admirable. Both extremes
are equally illogical and untrue, but the latter is the
more unjust. The truth is that all characters have
more than one side ; and there are in history as in
everyday life comparatively few figures we can
either deify or wholly condemn. Isabella was not
an angel, — she was a woman, and with failings, as
every woman has. But she was a remarkable woman
and a great one, and worthy our respect as well as

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A MUDDLED GEOGRAPHY. 33

our gratitude. She has no need to fear comparison
of character with "Good Queen Bess," and she
made a much greater mark on history. It was not
sordid ambition nor avarice which made her give
ear to the world-finder. It was the woman's faith
and sympathy and intuition which have so many
times changed history, and given room for the ex-
ploits of so many heroes who would have died
unheard of if they had depended upon the slower
and colder and more selfish s)rmpathy of men.

Isabella took the lead and the responsibility her-
self. She had a kingdom of her own ; and if her
royal husband Ferdinand did not deem it wise to
embark the fortunes of Arragon in such a wild enter-
prise, she could meet the expenses from her realm of
Castile. Ferdinand seems to have cared little either
way; but his fair-haired, blue-eyed queen, whose
gentle face hid great courage and determination,
was enthusiastic.

The Genoan's conditions were granted ; and on
the 17th of April, 1492, one of the most important
papers that ever held ink was signed by their Majes-
ties, and by Columbus. If you could see that pre-
cious contract, you would probably have very little
idea whose autograph was the lower one, — for
Columbus's rigmarole of a signature would cause
consternation at a teller's window nowadays. The
gist of this famous agreement was as follows : —

I. That Columbus and his heirs forever should
have the office of admiral in all the lands he might

discover.

3

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34 THB SPANISH PIONEERS,

2. That he should be viceroy and governor-gen-
eral of these lands, with a voice in the appointment
of his subordinate governors.

3. That he should reserve for himself one
tenth part of the gold, silver, pearls, and all other
treasures acquired.

4. That he and his lieutenant should be sole
judges, concurrent with the High Admiral of Cas-
tile, in matters of commerce in the New World.

5. That he should have the privilege of con-
tributing one eighth to the expenses of any other
expedition to these new lands, and should then be
entitled to one eighth of the profits.

It is a pity that the conduct of Columbus in Spain
was not free from a duplicity which did him little
credit. He entered the service of Spain, Jan. 20,
i486. As early as May 5, 1487, the Spanish Crown
gave him three thousand maravedis (about ;^i8)
" for some secret service for their Majesties ; " and
during the same year, eight thousand maravedis
more. Yet after this he was secretly proffering his
services again to the King of Portugal, who in 1488
wrote Columbus a letter giving him the freedom of
the kingdom in return for the explorations he was to
make for Portugal. But this fell through.

Of the voyage itself you are more likely to have
heard, — the voyage which lasted a few months, but
to earn which the strong-hearted Genoese had borne
nearly twenty years of disheartenment and opposi-
tion. It was the years of undaunted struggling to
convert the world to his own unfisithomed wisdom

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A MUDDLED GEOGRAPHY.

35

that showed the character of Columbus more fully
than aU he ever did after the world believed him.

The difficulties of securing official consent and
permission being thus at last overcome, there was
only the obstacle left of getting an expedition
together. This was a very serious matter; there
were few who cared to join in such a foolhardy
undertaking as it was felt to be. Finally, volun-
teers failing, a crew had to be gathered forcibly by
order of the Crown ; and with his nSo the " Santa
Maria," and his two caravels the " NiiXa " and the
" Pinta," filled with unwilling men, the world-finder
was at last ready.

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36 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

III.

COLUMBUS, THE FINDER.

COLUMBUS sailed from Palos, Spain, on Friday,
August 3, 1492, at 8 A. m., with one hundred
and twenty Spaniards under his command. You
know how he and his brave comrade Pinzon held up
the spirits of his weakening crew ; and how, on the
morning of October 12, they sighted land at last.
It was not the mainland of America, — which Colum-
bus never saw until nearly eight years later, — but
Watling*s Island. The voyage had been the longest
west which man had yet made ; and it was very char-
acteristically illustrative of the state of the world's
knowledge then. When the variations of the mag-
netic needle were noticed by the voyagers, they
decided that it was not the needle but the north
star that varied. Columbus was perhaps as well
informed as any other geographer of his day; but
he came to the sober conclusion that the cause
of certain phenomena must be that he was sailing
over a bump on the globe / This was more strongly
brought out in his subsequent voyage to the Orinoco,
when he detected even a worse earth-bump, and
concluded that the world must be pear-shaped ! It
is interesting to remember that but for an accidental

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COLUMBUS, THE FINDER. 37

change of course, the voyagers would have struck
the Gulf Stream and been carried north, — in which
case what is now the United States would have
become the first field of Spain's conquest.

The first white man who saw land in the New
World was a common sailor named Rodrigo de
Tnana, though Columbus himself had seen a light
the night before. Although it is probable — as you
will see later on — that Cabot saw the actual con-
tinent of America before Columbus (in 1497), it
was Columbus who found the New World, who took
possession of it as its ruler under Spain, and who
even founded the first European colonies in it, —
building, and settling with forty-three men, a town
which he named La Navidad (the Nativity), on the
island of San Domingo (Espafiola, as he called it),
in December, 1492. Moreover, had it not beei)
that Columbus had already found the New World,
Cabot never would have sailed.

The explorers cruised from island to island, find-
ing many remarkable things. In Cuba, which they
reached October 26, they discovered tobacco, which
had never been known to civilization before, and
the equally unknown sweet potato. These two
products, of the value of which no early explorer
dreamed, were to be far more important factors in
the money-markets and in the comforts of the world
than all the more dazzling treasures. Even the
hammock and its name were given to civilization by
this first voyage.

In March, 1493, after a fearful return voyage,

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38 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

Columbus was again in Spain, telling his wondrous
news to Ferdinand and Isabella, and showing them
his trophies of gold, cotton, brilliant-feathered birdsy
strange plants and animals, and still stranger men,-->
for he had also brought back with him nine Indians,
the first Americans to take a European trip. Every
honor was heaped upon Columbus by the apprecia-
tive country of his adoption. It must have been a
gallant sight to see this tall, athletic, ruddy-faced
though gray-haired new grandee of Spain riding in
almost royal splendor at the king's bridle, before an
admiring court.

The grave and graceful queen was greatly interested
in the discoveries made, and enthusiastic in prepar-
ing for more. Both intellectually and as a woman,
the New World appealed to her very strongly ; and
as to the aborigines, she became absorbed in earnest
plans for their welfare. Now that Columbus had
proved that one could sail up and down the globe
without falling over that "jumping-off place," there
was no trouble about finding plenty of imitators.^
He had done his work of genius, — he was the path-
finder, — and had finished his great mission. Had
he stopped there, he would have left a much greater
name ; for in all that came after he was less fitted
for his task.

A second expedition was hastened ; and Sept. 25,
1493, Columbus sailed again, — this time taking fif-
teen hundred Spaniards in seventeen vessels, with

^ As he himself complains: "The very tailors turned
explorers."

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COLUMBUS, THE PINDBR. 39

animals and supplies to colonize his New World.
And now, too, with strict commands from the Crown
to Christianize the Indians, and always to treat them
well, Columbus brought the first missionaries to
America, — twelve of them. The wonderful mother-
care of Spain for the souls and bodies of the savages
who so long disputed her entrance to the New World
began early, and it never flagged. No other nation
ever evolved or carried out so noble an ''Indian
policy'' as Spain has maintained over her western
possessions for four centuries.

The second voyage was a very hard one. Some
of the vessels were worthless and leaky, and the
crews had to keep bailing them out.

Columbus made his second landing in the New
World Nov. 3, 1493, on the island of Dominica.
His colony of La Navidad had been destroyed ; and
in December he founded the new city of Isabella.
In January, 1494, he founded there the first church
in the New World. During the same voyage he
also built the first road.

As has been said, the first voyages to America
were little in comparison with the difficulty in get-
ting a chance to make a voyage at all; and the
hardships of the sea were nothing to those that
came after the safe landing. It was now that Colum-
bus entered upon the troubles which darkened the
remainder of a life of glory. Great as was his genius
as an explorer, he was an unsuccessful colonizer;
and though he founded the first four towns in all the
New World, they brought him only ill. His colo-

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40 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

nists at Isabella soon grew mutinous ; and San Tonias,
which he founded in Hayti, brought him no better
fortune. The hardships of continued exploration
among the West Indies presently overcame his health,
and for nearly half a year he lay sick in Isabella.
Had it not been for his bold and skilful brother
Bartholomew, of whom we hear so little, we might
not have heard so much of Columbus.

By 1495, the just displeasure of the Crown with
the unfitness of the first viceroy of the New World
caused Juan Aguado to be sent out with an open
commission to inspect matters. This was more than
Columbus could bear ; and leaving Bartholomew as
adelantado (a rank for which we now have no equiva-
lent ; it means the officer in chief command of an
expedition of discoverers), Columbus hastened to
Spain and set himself right with his sovereigns.
Returning to the New World as soon as possible,
he discovered at ]tast the mainland (that of South
America), Aug. i, 1498, but at first thought it an
island, and named it Zeta. Presently, however, he
came to the mouth of the Orinoco, whose mighty
current proved to him that it poured from a
continent.

Stricken down by sickness, he returned to Isabella,
only to find that his colonists had revolted against
Bartholomew. Columbus satisfied the mutineers by
sending them back to Spain with a number of slaves,
— a disgraceful act, for which the times are his only
apology. Good Queen Isabella was so indignant at
this barbarity that she ordered the poor Indians to be

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COLUMBUS, THE FINDER. 41

liberated, and sent out Francisco de Bobadilla, who
in 1500 arrested Columbus and his two brothers, in
Espanola, and sent them in irons to Spain. Colum-
bus speedily regained the sympathy of the Crown,
and Bobadilla was superseded; but that was the
end of Columbus as viceroy of the New World. In
1502 he made his fourth voyage, discovered Mar-
tinique and other islands, and founded his fourth
colony, — Bethlehem, 1503. But misfortune was
closing in upon him. After more than a year of
great hardship and distress, he returned to Spain ;
and there he died May 20, 1506.

The body of the world-finder was buried in Val-
ladolid, Spain, but was several times transferred to
new resting-places. It is claimed that his dust now
lies, with that of his son Diego, in a chapel of the
cathedral of Havana ; but this is doubtful. We are
not at all sure that the precious relics were not
retained and interred on the island of Santo Do-
mingo, whither they certainly were brought from
Spain. At all events, they are in the New World,
— at peace at last in the lap of the America he
gave us.

Columbus was neither a perfect man nor a scoun-
drel, — though as each he has been alternately pic-
tured. He was a remarkable man, and for his day
and calling a good one. He had with the faith of
genius a marvellous energy and tenacity, and through
*a great stubbornness carried out an idea which seems
to us very natural, but to the world then seemed
ridiculous. As long as he remained in the profes-

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42 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

sion to which he had been reared, and in which he
was probably unequalled at the time, he made a
wonderful record. But when, after half a century
as a sailor, he suddenly turned viceroy, he became
the proverbial " sailor on land," — absolutely " lost."
In his new duties he was unpractical, headstrong,
and even injurious to the colonization of the New
World. It has been a fashion to accuse the Spanish
Crown of base ingratitude toward Columbus; but
this is unjust. The fault was with his own acts,
which made harsh measures by the Crown neces-
sary and right. He was not a good manager, nor
had he the high moral principle without which no
ruler can earn honor. His failures were not from
rascality but from some weaknesses, and from a gen-
eral unfitness for the new duties to which he was too
old to adapt himself.

We have many pictures of Columbus, but probably
none that look like him. There was no photography
in his day, and we cannot learn that his portrait was
ever drawn from life. The pictures that have come
down to us were made, with one exception, after
his death, and all from memory or from descriptions
of him. He is represented to have been tall and
imposing, with a rather stem face, gray eyes, aquiline
nose, ruddy but freckled cheeks, and gray hair, and
he liked to wear the gray habit of a Franciscan
n^issionary. Several of his original letters remain
to us, with his remarkable autograph, and a sketch
that is attributed to him.

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MAKING GEOGRAPHY. 43

IV.

MAKING GEOGRAPHY.

WHILE Columbus was sailing back and forth
between the Old World and the new one
which he had found, was building towns and nam-
ing what were to be nations, England seemed
almost ready to take a hand. All Europe was in-
terested in the strange news which came from Spain.
England moved through the instrumentality of a
Venetian, whom we know as Sebastian Cabot. On
the sth of March, 1496, — four years after Colum-
bus's discovery, — Henry VII. of England granted
a patent to "John Gabote, a citizen of Venice," and
his three sons, allowing them to sail westward on a
voyage of discovery. John, and Sebastian his son,
sailed from Bristol in 1497, and saw the mainland
of America at daybreak, June 24, of the same year,
— probably the coast of Nova Scotia, — but did noth-
ing. After their return to England, the elder Cabot
died. In May, 1498, Sebastian sailed on his second
voyage, which probably took him into Hudson's Bay
and a few hundred miles down the coast. There is
little probability in the theory that he ever saw iny
part of what is now the United States. He was a
northern rover, — so thoroughly so, that the three

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44 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

hundred colonists whom he brought out perished
with cold in July.

England did not treat her one early explorer well ;
and in 1512 Cabot entered the more grateful service
of Spain. In 15 17 he sailed to the Spanish pos-
sessions in the West Indies, on which voyage he
was accompanied by an Englishman named Thomas
Pert. In August, 1526, Cabot sailed with another
Spanish expedition bound for the Pacific, which had
already been discovered by a heroic Spaniard ; but
his officers mutinied, and he was obliged to abandon
his purpose. He explored the Rio de la Plata (the
" Silver River ") for a thousand miles, built a fort at
one of the mouths of the Parana, and explored part
of that river and of the Paraguay, — for South Amer-
ica had been for nearly a generation a Spanish pos-
session. Thence he returned to Spain, and later to
England, where he died about 1557.

Of the rude maps which Cabot made of the New
World, all are lost save one which is preserved in
France ; and there are no documents left of him.
Cabot was a genuine explorer, and must be included
in the list of the pioneers of America, but as one
whose work was fruitless of consequences, and who
saw, but did not take a hand in, the New World.
He was a man of high courage and stubborn per-
severance, and will be remembered as the discov-
erer of Newfoundland and the extreme northern
mainland.

After Cabot, England took a nap of more than
half a century. When she woke again, it was to find

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MAKING GEOGRAPHY,

45

that Spain's sleepless sons had scattered over half
the New World ; and that even France and Portu-
gal had left her far behind. Cabot, who was not an
Englishman, was the first English explorer ; and the
next were Drake and Hawkins, and then Captains
Amadas and Barlow, after a lapse of seventy-five
and eighty-seven years, respectively, — during which
a large part of the two continents had been discov-
ered, explored, and settled by other nations, of which
Spain was undeniably in the lead. Columbus, the
first Spanish explorer, was not a Spaniard ; but with
his first discovery began such an impetuous and un-
ceasing rush of Spanish-bom explorers as achieved
more in a hundred years than all the other nations
of Europe put together achieved here in America's
first three hundred. Cabot saw and did nothing ;
and three quarters of a century later Sir John Haw-
kins and Sir Francis Drake — whom old histories
laud greatly, but who got rich by selling poor Afri-
cans into slavery, and by actual piracy against un-
protected ships and towns of the colonies of Spain,
with which their mother England was then at peace
— saw the West Indies and the Pacific, more than
half a century after these had become possessions
of Spain. Drake was the first Englishman to go
through the Straits of Magellan, — and he did it
sixty years after that heroic Portuguese had found
them and christened them with his life-blood. Drake
was probably first to see what is now Oregon, —
his only important discovery*. He "took posses-
sion" of Oregon for England, under the name of

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46 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

" New Albion ; " but old Albion never had a settle-
ment there.

Sir John Hawkins, Drake's kinsman, was, like
him, a distinguished sailor, but not a real discoverer
or explorer at all. Neither of them explored or
colonized the New World; and neither left much
more impress on its history than if he had never
been bom. Drake brought the first potatoes to
England; but the importance even of that dis-
covery was not dreamed of till long after, and by
other men.

Captains Amadas and Barlow, in 1584, saw our
coast at Cape Hatteras and the island of Roanoke,
and went away without any permanent result. The
following year Sir Richard Grenville discovered Cape
Fear, and there was an end of it. Then came Sir
Walter Raleigh's famous but petty expeditions to
Virginia, the Orinoco, and New Guinea, and the
less important voyages of John Davis (in 1585-87)
to the Northwest. Nor must we forget brave Mar-
tin Frobisher's fruitless voyages to Greenland in
1576-81. This was the end of England in America
until the seventeenth century. In 1602 Captain
Gosnold coasted nearly our whole Atlantic seaboard,
particularly about Cape Cod; and five years later
yet was the beginning of English occupancy in the
New World. The first English settlement which
made a serious mark on history — as Jamestown
did not — was that of the Pilgrim Fathers in 1602 ;
and they came not for the sake of opening a
new world, but to escape the intolerance of the

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ONE OF THE MOQUI TOWNS.

See page Bj,
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MAKING GEOGRAPHY, 47

old. In fact, as Mr. Winsor has pointed out, the
Saxon never took any particular interest in America
until it began to be understood as a commercial
opportunity.

But when we turn to Spain, what a record is that
of the hundred years after Columbus and before
Plymouth Rock ! In 1499 Vincente Yafiez de Pin-
zon, a companion of Columbus, discovered the coast
of Brazil, and claimed the new country for Spain,
but made no settlement. His discoveries were at
the mouths of the Amazon and the Orinoco ; and
he was the first European to see the greatest river
in the world. In the following year Pedro Alvarez
Cabral, a Portuguese, was driven to the coast of
Brazil by a storm, " took possession " for Portugal,
and founded a colony there.

As to Amerigo Vespucci, the inconsiderable ad-
venturer whose name so overshadows his exploits,
his American claims are extremely dubious. Ves-
pucci was bom in Florence in 145 1, and was an
educated man, — his father being a notary and his
uncle a Dominican who gave him a good schooling.
He became a clerk in the great house of the Medi-
cis, and in their service was sent to Spain about
1490. There he presently got into the employ of
the merchant who fitted out Columbus's second
expedition, — a Florentine named Juanoto Berardi.
When Berardi died, in 1495, ^^ ^^^ ^^ unfinished
contract to fit out twelve ships for the Crown ; and
Vespucci was intrusted with the completion of the
contract. There is no reason whatever to believe

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48 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

that he accompanied Columbus either on the first
or the second voyage. According to his own story,
he sailed from Cadiz May lo, 1497 (in a Spanish
expedition), and reached the mainland eighteen
days before Cabot saw it. The statement of ency-
clopaedias that Vespucci " probably got as far north
as Cape Hatteras " is ridiculous. The proof is ab-
solute that he never saw an inch of the New World
north of the equator. Returning to Spain in the
latter part of 1498, he sailed again, May 16, 1499,
with Ojeda, to San Domingo, a voyage on which he
was absent about eighteen months. He left Lisbon
on his third voyage, May 10, 1501, going to Brazil.
It is not true, despite the encyclopaedias, that he
discovered and named the Bay of Rio Janeiro ; both
those honors belong to Cabral, the real discoverer
and pioneer of Brazil, and a man of vastly greater
historical importance than Vespucci. Vespucci's
fourth voyage took him from Lisbon (June 10,
1503) to Bahia, and thence to Cape Frio, where
he built a little fort. In 1504 he returned to Portu-
gal, and in the following year to Spain, where he
died in 15 12.

These voyages rest only on Vespucci's own state-
ments, which are not to be implicitly believed. It
is probable that he did not sail at all in 1497, and
quite certain that he had no share whatever in the
real discoveries in the New World.

The name "America" was first invented and
applied in 1507 by an ill-informed German printer,
named Waldzeemtiller, who had got hold of Amerigo

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MAKING GEOGRAPHY, 49

Vespucci's documents. History is full of injustices,
but never a greater among them all than the chris-
tening of America. It would have been as appro-
priate to call it Walzeemullera. The first map of
America was made in 1500 by Juan de la Cosa, a
Spaniard, — and a very funny map it would seem to
the schoolboy of to-day. The first geography of
America was by Enciso, a Spaniard, in 15 17.

It is pleasant to turn from an overrated and very
dubious man to those genuine but almost unheard-of
Portuguese heroes, the brothers Gaspard and Miguel
Corte-Real. Gaspard sailed from Lisbon in the
year 1500, and discovered and named Labrador, —
'' the laborer." In 1501 he sailed again from
Portugal to the Arctic, and never returned. After
waiting a year, his brother Miguel led an expedition
to find and rescue him ; but he too perished, with all
his men, among the ice-floes of the Arctic. A third
brother wished to go in quest of the lost explorers,
but was forbidden by the king, who himself sent
out a relief expedition of two ships ; but no trace of
the gallant Corte-Reals, nor of any of their men, was
ever found.

Such was the pioneering of America up to the end
of the first decade of the sixteenth century, — a se-
ries of gallant and dangerous voyages (of which only
the most notable ones of the great Spanish inrush
have been mentioned), resulting in a few ephemeral
colonies, but important only as a peep into the doors
of the New World. The real hardships and dangers,
the real exploration and conquest of the Americas,
4

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50 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

began with the decade from 1510 to 1520, — the
beginning of a century of such exploration and con-
quest as the world never saw before nor since. Spain
had it all to herself, save for the heroic but compara-
tively petty achievements of Portugal in South Amer-
ica, between the Spanish points of conquest. The
sixteenth century in the New World was unparalleled
in military history ; and it produced, or rather de-
veloped, such men as tower far above the later
conquerors in their achievement. Our part of the
hemisphere has never made such startling chapters
of conquest as were carved in the grimmer wilder-
nesses to our south by Cortez, Pizarro, Valdivia, and
Quesada, the greatest subduers of wild America.

There were at least a hundred other early Spanish
heroes, unknown to public fame and buried in ob-
scurity imtil real history shall give them their well-
earned praise. There is no reason to believe that
these unremembered heroes were more capable of
great things than our Israel Putnams and Ethan
Aliens and Francis Marions and Daniel Boones;
but they did much greater things under the spur of
greater necessity and opportunity. A hundred such,
I say ; but really the list is too long to be even cata-
logued here ; and to pay attention to their greater
brethren will fill this book. No other mother-nation
ever bore a hundred Stanleys and four Julius Caesars
in one century ; but that is part of what Spain did
for the New World. Pizarro, Cortez, Valdivia, and
Quesada are entitled to be called the Caesars of the
New World ; and no other conquests in the history of

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MAKING GEOGRAPHY. 51

America are at all comparable to theirs. As among
the four, it is almost difficult to say which was great-
est ; though there is really but one answer possible
to the historian. The choice lies of course between
Cortez and Pizarro, and for years was wrongly made.
Cortez was first in time, and his operations seem to
us nearer home. He was a highly educated man
for his time, and, like Caesar, had the advantage of
being able to write his own biography; while his
distant cousin Pizarro could neither read nor write,
but had to ''make his mark,'' — a striking contrast
with the bold and handsome (for those days) auto-
graph of Cortez. But Pizarro — who had this lack
of education as a handicap from the first, who went
through infinitely greater hardships and difficulties
than Cortez, and managed the conquest of an area as
great with a third as many men as Cortez had, and
very much more desperate and rebellious men — was
beyond question the greatest Spanish American, and
the greatest tamer of the New World. It is for that
reason, and because such gross injustice has been
done him, that I have chosen his marvellous career,
to be detailed later in this book, as a picture of the
supreme heroism of the Spanish pioneers.

But while Pizarro was greatest, all four were
worthy the rank they have been assigned as the
Csesars of America.

Certain it is that the bald-headed little great man
of old Rome, who crowds the page of ancient his-
tory, did nothing greater than each of those four
Spanish heroes, who with a few tattered Spaniards

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52 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

in place of the iron legions of Rome conquered
each an inconceivable wilderness as savage as Caesar
found, and five times as big. Popular opinion long
did a vast injustice to these and all other of the
Spanish conquistadoresy belittling their military
achievements on account of their alleged great supe-
riority of weapons over the savages, and taxing them
with a cruel and relentless extermination of the ab-
origines. The clear, cold light of true history tells
a different tale. In the first place, the advantage of
weapons was hardly more than a moral advantage
in inspiring awe among the savages at first, for the
sadly clumsy and ineffective firearms of the day were
scarcely more dangerous than the aboriginal bows
which opposed them. They were effective at not
much greater range than arrows, and were tenfold
slower of delivery. As to the cumbrous and usually
dilapidated armor of the Spaniard and his horse, it
by no means fully protected either from the agate-
tipped arrows of the savages ; and it rendered both
man and beast ill-fitted to cope with their agile foes
in any extremity, besides being a frightful burden in
those tropic heats. The " artillery " of the times
was almost as worthless as the ridiculous arquebuses.
As to their treatment of the natives, there was incom-
parably less cruelty suffered by the Indians who op-
posed the Spaniards than by those who lay in the
path of any other European colonizers. The Spanish
did not obliterate any aboriginal nation, — as our
ancestors obliterated scores, — but followed the first
necessarily bloody lesson with humane education

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MAKING GEOGRAPHY, 53

and care. Indeed, the actual Indian population of
the Spanish possessions in America is larger to-day
than it was at the time of the conquest ; and in that
astounding contrast of conditions, and its lesson as
to contrast of methods, is sufficient answer to the
distorters of history.

Before we come to the great conquerors, how-
ever, we must outline the eventful career and tragic
end of the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean, Vasco
Nunez de Balboa. In one of the noblest poems in
the English language we read, —

" Like stout Cortes, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent upon a peak in Darien."

But Keats was mistaken. It was not Cortez who
first saw the Pacific, but Balboa, — five years before
Cortez came to the mainland of America at all.

Balboa was bom in the province of Estremadura,
Spain, in 1475. Ini5oihe sailed with Bastidas for
the New World, and then saw Darien, but settled on
the island of Espatiola. Nine years later he sailed
to Darien with Enciso, and there remained. Jt^ife
in the New World then was a troublous aflfair, and
the first years of Balboa's life there were eventful
enough, though we must pass them over. Quarrels
presently arose in the colony of Darien. Enciso
was deposed and shipped back to Spain a prisoner,
and Balboa took command. Enciso, upon his ar-
rival in Spain, laid all the blame upon Balboa, and
got him condemned by the king for high treason.

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54 THE SPANISH PIONEERS

Learning of this^ Balboa determined upon a master-
stroke whose brilliancy should restore him to the
royal favor. From the natives he had heard of the
other ocean and of Peru, — neither yet seen by
European eyes, — and made up his mind to find
them. In September, 15 13, he sailed to Coyba
with one hundred and ninety men, and from that
point, with only ninety followers, tramped across
the Isthmus to the Pacific, — for its length one of
the most frightfiil journeys imaginable. It was on
the 26th of September, 15 13, that from the summit
of the divide the tattered, bleeding heroes looked
down upon the blue infinity of the South Sea, — for
it was not called the Pacific imtil long after. They
descended to the coast ; and Balboa, wading out
knee-deep into the new ocean, holding aloft in his
right hand his slender sword, and in his left the
proud flag of Spain, took solemn possession of the
South Sea in the name of the King of Spain.

The explorers got back to Darien Jan. 18, 15 14,
and Balboa sent to Spain an account of his great
discovery. But Pedro Arias de Avila had ah-eady
sailed from the mother country to supplant him.
At last, however, Balboa's brilliant news reached
the king, who forgave him, and made him adelan-
tado; and soon after he married the daughter of
Pedro Arias. Still full of great plans, Balboa car-
ried the necessary material across the Isthmus with
infinite toil, and on the shores of the blue Pacific
put together the first ships in the Americas, — two
brigantines. With these he took possession of the

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MAKING GEOGRAPHY. 55

Pearl Islands, and then started out to find Peru, but
was driven back by storms to an ignoble £aite. His
(ather-in-law, becoming jealous of Balboa's brilliant
prospects, enticed him back to Darien by a treach-
erous message, seized him, and had him publicly
executed, on the trumped-up charge of high treason,
in 151 7. Balboa had in him the making of an ex-
plorer of the first rank, and but for De Avila's
shameless deed might probably have won even
higher honors. His courage was sheer audacity,
and his energy tireless ; but he was unwisely careless
in his attitude toward the Crown.

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S6 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

THE CHAPTER OF CONQUEST.

WHILE the discoverer of the greatest ocean
was still striving to probe its farther mys-
teries, a handsome, athletic, brilliant young Span-
iard, who was destined to make much more noise
in history, was just beginning to be heard of on the
threshold of America, of whose central kingdoms he
was soon to be conqueror.

Hernando Cortez came of a noble but impoverished
Spanish family, and was bom in Estremadura ten
years later than Balboa. At the age of fourteen he
was sent to the University of Salamanca to study for
the law ; but the adventurous spirit of the man was
already strong in the slender lad, and in a couple of
years he left college, and went home determined
upon a life of roving. The air was full of Columbus
and his New World ; and what spirited youth could
stay to pore in musty law-books then? Not the
irrepressible Hernando, surely.

Accidents prevented him from accompanying two
expeditions for which he had made ready ; but at
last, in 1504, he sailed to San Domingo, in which
new colony of Spain he made such a record that
Ovando, the commander, several times promoted
him, and he earned the reputation of a model sol-

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THE CHAPTER OP CONQUEST 57

dier. In 151 1 he accompanied Velasquez to Cuba,
and was made alcalde (judge) of Santiago, where he
won further praise by his courage and firmness in
several important crises. Meantime Francisco Her-
nandez de Cordova, the discoverer of Yucatan, — a
hero with this mere mention of whom we must
content ourselves, — had reported his important
discovery. A year later, Grijalva, the lieutenant of
Velasquez, had followed Cordova's course, and gone
farther north, until at last he discovered Mexico.
He made no attempt, however, to conquer or to
colonize the new land; whereat Velasquez was so
indignant that he threw Grijalva in disgrace, and
intrusted the conquest to Cortez. The ambitious
young Spaniard sailed from Santiago (Cuba) Nov.
18, 1 5 18, with less than seven hundred men and
twelve little cannon of the class called falconets.
No sooner was he fairly off than Velasquez repented
having given him such a chance for distinction, and
directly sqnt out a force to arrest and bring him
back. But Cortez was the idol of his little army,
and secure in its fondness for him he bade defiance
to the emissaries of Velasquez, and held on his way.*
He landed on the coast of Mexico March 4, 15 19,
near where is now the city of Vera Cruz (the True
Cross) , which he founded, — the first European
town on the mainland of America as far north as
Mexico.

1 This mutiny against Velasquez was the first hint of the
unscrupulous man who was finally to turn complete traitor
to Spain.

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58 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

The landing of the Spaniards caused as great a
sensation as would the arrival in New York to-day
of an army from Mars.* The awe-struck natives
had never before seen a horse (for it was the
Spanish who brought the first horses^ cattle, sheep^
and other domestic animals to the New World),
and decided that these strange, pale new-comers
who sat on four-legged beasts, and had shirts of
iron and sticks that made thunder, must indeed be
gods.

Here the adventurers were inflamed by golden
stories of Montezuma, — a myth which befooled
Cortez no more egregiously than it has befooled
some modem historians, who seem unable to dis-
criminate between what Cortez heard and what he
found. He was told that Montezuma — whose name
is properly Moctezuma, or Motecuzoma, meaning
"Our Angry Chief"— r- was "emperor" of Mex-
ico, and that thirty " kings," called caciques^ were
his vassals; that he had incalculable wealth and
absolute power, and dwelt in a blaze of gold and
precious stones I Even some most charming his-
torians have fallen into the sad blunder of accept-
ing these impossible myths. Mexico never had
but two emperors, — Augustin de Iturbide and the
hapless Maximilian, — both in this present century ;
and Moctezuma was neither its emperor nor even
its king. The social and political organization of
the ancient Mexicans was exactly like that of the

^ Tezozomoc, the Indian historian, graphically describes
the wonder of the natives.

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THE CHAPTER OF CONQUEST. 59

Pueblo Indians of New Mexico at the present day,
— a military democracy, with a mighty and com-
plicated religious organization as its <' power behind
the throne." Moctezuma was merely Hacat^cutle,
or head war-chief of the Nahuatl (the ancient Mexi-
cans), and neither the supreme nor the only execu-
tive. Of just how little importance he really was
may be gathered from his fate.

Having founded Vera Cruz, Cortez caused him-
self to be elected governor and captain-general (the
highest miUtary rank) * of the new country ; and
having burned his ships, like the famous Greek com-
mander, that there might be no retreat, he began
his march into the grim wilderness before him.

It was now that Cortez began to show particu-
larly that military genius which lifted him so far
above all other pioneers of America except Pizarro.
With only a handflil of men, — for he had left part
of his forces at Vera Cruz, under his lieutenant
Escalante, — in an unknown land swarming with
powerful and savage foes, mere courage and brute
force would have stood him in little stead. But
with a diplomacy as rare as it was brilliant, he
found the weak spots in the Indian organization,
widened the jealous breaches between tribes, made
allies of those who were secretly or openly opposed
to Moctezuma's federation of tribes, — a league
which somewhat resembled the Six Nations of our
own history, — and thus vastly reduced the forces to
be directly conquered. Having routed the tribes of

^ Another specific act of treason.

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6o THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

Tlacala (pronounced Tlash-cih-lah) and Cholula,
Cortez came at last to the strange lake-city of
Mexico, with his little Spanish troop swelled by six
thousand Indian allies. Moctezuma received him
with great ceremony, but undoubtedly with treach-
erous intent. While he was entertaining his visitors
in one of the huge adobe houses, — not a " palace,"
as the histories tell us, for there were no palaces
whatever in Mexico, — one of the sub-chiefs of his
league attacked Escalante's little garrison at Vera
Cruz and killed several Spaniards, including Esca-
lante himself. The head of the Spanish lieutenant
was sent to the City of Mexico, — for the Indians
south of what is now the United States took not
merely the scalp but the whole head of an enemy.
This was a direful disaster, not so much for the loss of
the few men as because it proved to the Indians (as
the senders intended it to prove) that the Spaniards
were not immortal gods after all, but could be killed
the same as other men.

As soon as Cortez heard the ill news he saw this
danger at once, and made a bold stroke to save
himself. He had already strongly fortified the
adobe building in which the Spaniards were quar-
tered ; and now, going by night with his officers to
the house of the head war-captain, he seized Mocte-
zuma and threatened to kill him unless he at once
gave up the Indians who had attacked Vera Cruz.
Moctezuma delivered them up, and Cortez at once
had them burned in public. This was a cruel thing,
though it was undoubtedly necessary to make some

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THE CHAPTER OP CONQUEST 6l

vivid impression on the savages or be at once and
nihilated by them. There is no apology for this
barbarity, yet it is only just that we measure Cortez
by the standard of his time, — and it was a very
cruel world everywhere then.

It is amusing here to read in pretentious text-
books that "Cortez now ironed Montezuma and
made him pay a ransom of six hundred thousand
marks of pure gold and an immense quantity of
precious stones.'' That is on a par with the impos-
sible fables which lured so many of the early Span-
iards to disappointment and death, and is a fair
sample of the gilded glamour with which equally
credulous historians still surround early America.
Moctezuma did not buy himself free, — he never was
free again, — and he paid no ransom of gold ; while
as for precious stones, he may have had a few native
garnets and worthless green turquoises, and perhaps
even an emerald pebble, but nothing more.

Just at this crisis in the affairs of Cortez he was
threatened from another quarter. News came that
Pamfilo de Narvaez, of whom we shall see more
presently, had landed with eight hundred men to
arrest Cortez and carry him back prisoner for his
disobedience of Velasquez. But here again the
genius of the conqueror of Mexico saved him.
Marching against Narvaez with one hundred and
forty men, he arrested Narvaez, enlisted under his
own banner the welcome eight hundred who had
come to arrest him, and hastened back to the City
of Mexico.

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62 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

Here he found matters growing daily to more
deadly menace. Alvarado, whom he had left in
command, had apparently precipitated trouble by
attacking an Indian dance. Wanton as that may
seem and has been charged with being, it was only
a military necessity, recognized by all who really
know the aborigines even to this day. The closet-
explorers have pictured the Spaniards as wickedly
falling upon an aboriginal /^^/r'z'a// but that is sim-
ply because of ignorance of the subject. An Indian
dance is not a festival ; it is generally, and was in
this case, a grim rehearsal for murder. An Indian
never dances " for fun," and his dances too often
mean anything but fun for other people. In a word,
Alvarado, seeing in progress a dance which was
plainly only the superstitious prelude to a massacre,
had tried to arrest the medicine-men and other
ringleaders. Had he succeeded, the trouble would
have been over for a time at least. But the Indians
were too numerous for his little force, and the chief
instigators of war escaped.

When Cortez came back with his eight hundred
strangely-acquired recruits, he found the whole city
with its mask thrown off, and his men penned up
in their barracks. The savages quietly let Cortez
enter the trap, and then closed it so that there was
no more getting out. There were the few hundred
Spaniards cooped up in their prison, and the four
dykes which were the only approaches to it — for the
City of Mexico was an American Venice — swarm-
ing with savage foes by the countless thousands.

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THE CHAPTER OF CONQUEST. 63

The Indian makes very few excuses for failure;
and the Nahuatl had akeady elected a new head
war-captain named Cuitlahuitzin in place of the
unsuccessful Moctezuma. The latter was still a
prisoner; and when the Spaniards brought him
out upon the house-top to speak to his people in
their behalf, the infuriated multitude of Indians
pelted him to death with stones. Then, under
their new war-captain, they attacked the Spaniards
so furiously that neither the strong walls nor the
clumsy falconets, and clumsier flintlocks, could
withstand them; and there was nothing for the
Spaniards but to cut their way out along one of the
dykes in a last desperate struggle for life. The
beginning of that six days' retreat was one of the
bitterest pages in American history. Then was the
Noche Triste (the Sad Night), still celebrated in
Spanish song and story. For that dark night many
a proud home in mother Spain was never bright
again, and many a fond heart broke with the crim-
son bubbles on the Lake of Tezcuco. In those few
ghastly hours two thirds of the conquerors were
slain ; and across more than eight hundred Spanish
corpses the frenzied savages pursued the bleeding
survivors.

After a fearful retreat of six days, came the impor-
tant running fight in the plains of Otumba, where
the Spaniards were entirely surrounded, but cut
their way out after a desperate hand-to-hand strug-
gle which really decided the fate of Mexico. Cor-
tez marched to Tlacala, raised an army of Indians

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64 TH^ SPANISH PIONEERS,

who were hostile to the federation, and with their
help laid siege to the City of Mexico. This siege
lasted seventy-three days, and was the most remark-
able in the history of all America. There was hard
fighting every day. The Indians made a superb
defence ; but at last the genius of Cortez triumphed,
and on the 13th of August, 152 1, he marched vic-
torious into the second greatest aboriginal city in
the New World.

These wonderful exploits of Cortez, so briefly
outlined here, awoke boundless admiration in Spain,
and caused the Crown to overlook his insubordina-
tion to Velasquez. The complaints of Velasquez
were disregarded, and Charles V. appointed Cortez
governor and captain-general of Mexico, besides
making him Marquis de Oaxaca with a handsome
revenue.

Safely established in this high authority, Cortez
crushed a plot against him, and executed the new
war-captain, with many of the caciques (who were
not potentates at all, but religious-military officers,
whose hold on the superstitions of the Indians made
them dangerous).

But Cortez, whose genius shone only the brighter
when the difficulties and dangers before him seemed
insurmountable, tripped up on that which has thrown
so many, — success. Unlike his unlearned but nobler
and greater cousin Pizarro, prosperity spoiled him,
and turned his head and his heart. Despite the
unstudious criticisms of some historians, Cortez was
not a cruel conqueror. He was not only a great

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THR CHAPTER OF CONQUEST. 65

military genius, but was very merciful to the Indians,
and was much beloved by them. The so-called
massacre at Cholula was not a blot on his career as
has been alleged. The truth, as vindicated at last
by real history, is this: The Indians had treach-
erously drawn him into a trap under pretext ot
friendship. Not until too late to retreat did he learn
that the savages meant to massacre him. When he
did see his danger, there was but one chance, —
namely, to surprise the surprisers, to strike them
before they were ready to strike him; and this is
only what he did. Cholula was simply a case of
the biter bitten.

No, Cortez was not cruel to the Indians ; but as
soon as his rule was established he became a cruel
tyrant to his own countrymen, a traitor to his friends
and even to his king, — and, worst of all, a cool
assassin. There is strong evidence that he had
" removed " several persons who were in the way of
his unholy ambitions; and the crowning infamy
was in the fate of his own wife. Cortez had long
for a mistress the handsome Indian girl Malinche ;
but after he had conquered Mexico, his lawful wife
came to the country to share his fortunes. He did
not love her, however, as much as he did his ambi-
tion ; and she was in his way. At last she was found
in her bed one morning, strangled to death.

Carried away by his ambition, he actually plotted

open rebellion against Spain and to make himself

emperor of Mexico. The Crown got wind of this

precious plan, and sent out emissaries who seized

S

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66 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

his goods, imprisoned his men, and prepared to
thwart his secret schemes. Cortez boldly hastened
to Spain, where he met his sovereign with great
splendor. Charles received him well, and deco-
rated him with the illustrious Order of Santiago, the
patron saint of Spain. But his star was already
declining ; and though he was allowed to return to
Mexico with undiminished outward power, he was
thenceforth watched, and did nothing more that was
comparable with his wonderful earlier achievements.
He had become too unscrupulous, too vindictive,
and too unsafe to be left in authority ; and after a
few years the Crown was forced to appoint a vice-
roy to wield the civil power of Mexico, leaving to
Cortez only the military command, and permission
for further conquests. In 1536 Cortez discovered
Lower California, and explored part of its gulf. At
last, disgusted with his inferior position where he
had once been supreme, he returned to Spain, where
the emperor received him coldly. In 1541 he ac-
companied his sovereign to Algiers as an attach^,
and in the wars there acquitted himself well. Soon
after their return to Spain, however, he found him-
self neglected. It is said that one day when Charles
was riding in state, Cortez forced his way to the
royal carriage and moimted upon the step deter-
mined to force recognition.

"Who are you?" demanded the angry emperor.

"A man, your Highness,** retorted the haughty
conqueror of Mexico, "who has given you more
provinces than your forefathers left you cities / **

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THB CHAPTER OP CONQUEST, 67

Whether the story is true or not^ it graphically
illustrates the arrogance as well as the services of
Cortez. He lacked the modest balance of the
greatest greatness, just as Columbus had lacked it
The self-assertion of either would have been impos-
sible to the greater man than either, — the self-
possessed Pizarro.

At last, in disgust, Cortez retired from court ; and
on the 2d of December, 1554, the man who had
first opened the interior of America to the world
died near Seville,

There were some in South America whose achieve-
ments were as wondrous as those of Cortez in Mex-
ico. The conquest of the two continents was prac-
tically contemporaneous, and equally marked by the
highest military genius, the most dauntless courage,
the overcoming of dangers which were appalling, and
hardships which were weUnigh superhuman.

Francisco Pizarro, the unlettered but invincible
conqueror of Peru, was fifteen years older than his
brilliant cousin Cortez, and was bom in the same
province of Spain. He began to be heard of in
America in 1510. From 1524 to 1532 he was
making superhuman efforts to get to the unknown
and golden land of Peru, overcoming such obstacles
as not even Columbus had encountered, and endur-
ing greater dangers and hardships than Napoleon or
Caesar ever met. From 1532 to his death in 1541,
he was busy in conquering and exploring that enor-
mous area, and founding a new nation amid its
fierce tribes, — fighting off not only the vast hordes

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68 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

of Indians, but also the desperate men of his own
forces, by whose treachery he at last perished.
Pizarro found and tamed the richest country in the
New World ; and with all his unparalleled sufferings
still realized, more than any other of the conquer-
ors, the golden dreams which all pursued. Prob-
ably no other conquest in the world's history yielded
such rapid and bewildering wealth, as certainly none
was bought more dearly in hardship and heroism.
Pizarro's conquest has been most unjustly dealt with
by some historians ignorant of the real facts in the
case, and blinded by prejudice ; but that marvellous
story, told in detail farther on, is coming to its
proper rank as one of the most stupendous and
gallant feats in all history. It is the story of a hero
to whom every true American, young or old, will be
glad to do justice. Pizarro has been long misrep-
resented as a blood-stained and cruel conqueror, a
selfish, unprincipled, unreliable man; but in the
clear, true light of real history he stands forth now
as one of the greatest of self-made men, and one
who, considering his chances, deserves the utmost
respect and admiration for the man he made of
himself. The conquest of Peru did not by far
cause as much bloodshed as the final reduction of
the Indian tribes of Virginia. It counted scarcely
as many Indian victims as King Philip's War, and
was much less bloody, because more straightforward
and honorable, than any of the British conquests in
East India. The most bloody events in Peru came
after the conquest was over, when the Spaniards

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THE CHAPTER OP CONQUEST. 69

fell to fighting one another ; and in this Pizarro was
not the aggressor but the victim. It was the treach-
ery of his own allies, — the men whose fames and for-
tunes he had made. His conquest covered a land
as big as California, Oregon, and most of Washing-
ton, — or as our whole seaboard from Nova Scotia
to Port Royal and two hundred miles inland, —
swarming with the best organized and most advanced
Indians in the Western Hemisphere ; and he did it
all with less than three hundred gaunt and tattered
men. He was one of the great captains of all
time, and almost as remarkable as organizer and
executive of a new empire, the first on the Pacific
shore of the southern continent. To this greatness
rose the friendless, penniless, ignorant swineherd of
Truxillo !

Pedro de Valdivia, the conqueror of Chile, sub-
dued that vast area of the deadly Araucanians with
an " army " of two hundred men. He established the
first colony in Chile in 1540, and in the following
February founded the present city of Santiago de
Chile. Of his long and deadly wars with the Arau-
canians there is not space to speak here. He was
killed by the savages Dec. 3, 1553, with nearly all
his men, after an indescribably desperate struggle.

There is not space to tell here of the wondrous do-
ings in the southern continent or the lower point of
this, — the conquest of Nicaragua by Gil Gonzales
Davila in 1523 ; the conquest of Guatemala, by Pedro
de Alvarado, in 1524 ; that of Yucatan by Francisco
de Montijo, beginning in 1526 ; that of New Granada

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70 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

by Gonzalo Ximenez de Quesada, in 1536 ; the con-
quests and exploration of Bolivia, the Amazon, and
the Orinoco (to whose falls the Spaniards had pene-
trated by 1530, by almost superhuman efforts) ; the
unparalleled Indian wars with the Araucanians in
Chile (for two centuries), with the Tarrahumares in
Chihuahua, the Tepehuanes in Durango, the still un-
tamed Yaquis in northwestern Mexico ; the exploits
of Captain Martin de Hurdaide (the Daniel Boone
of Sinaloa and Sonora) ; and of hundreds of other
unrecorded Spanish heroes, who would have been
world-renowned had they been more accessible to
the fame-maker.

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A GIRDLE ROUND THE WORLD. 71

VL

A GIRDLE ROUND THE WORLD.

BEFORE Cortez had yet conquered Mexico,
or Pizarro or Valdivia seen the lands with
which theii! names were to be linked for all time,
other Spaniards — less conquerors, but as great
explorers — were rapidly shaping the geography of
the New World. France, too, had aroused some-
what; and in 1500 her brave son Captain de
Gonneville sailed to Brazil. But between him and
the next pioneer, who was a Florentine in French
pay, was a gap of twenty-four years; and in that
time Spain had accomplished four most important
feats.

Femlo Magalhaes, whom we know as Ferdinand
Magellan, was bom in Portugal in 1470; and
on reaching manhood adopted the seafaring life,
to which his adventurous disposition prompted.
The Old World was then ringing with the New;
and MageUan longed to explore the Americas.
Being very shabbily treated by the King of Por-
tugal, he enlisted under the banner of Spain, where
his talents found recognition. He sailed from Spain
in command of a Spanish expedition, August 10,
1 5 19; and steering farther south than ever man

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73 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

had sailed before, he discovered Cape Horn, and
the Straits which bear his name. Fate did not
spare him to carry his discoveries farther, nor to
reap the reward of those he had made ; for during
this voyage (in 15 21) he was butchered by the
natives of one of the islands of the Moluccas. His
heroic lieutenant, Juan Sebastian de Elcano, then
took command, and continued the voyage until he
had circumnavigated the globe for the first time in
its history. Upon his return to Spain, the Crown
rewarded his brilliant achievements, and gave him,
among other honors, a coat-of-arms emblazoned
with a globe and the motto, Tu primutn circum-
dedisti me^ — " Thou first didst go around me."

Juan Ponce de Leon, the discoverer of Florida, —
the first State of our Union that was seen by Euro-
peans, — was as ill-fated an explorer as Magellan ;
for he came to " the Flowery Land " (to which he
had been lured by the wild m3rth of a fountain of
perennial youth) only to be slain by its savages.
De Leon was bom in San Servas, Spain, in the
latter part of the fifteenth century. He was the
conqueror of the island of Puerto Rico, and sailing
in 1 5 1 2 to find Florida, — of which he had heard
through the Indians, — discovered the new land in
the same year, and took possession of it for Spain.
He was given the title of adelantado of Florida,
and in 15 21 returned with three ships to conquer
his new country, but was at once wounded mortally
in a fight with the Indians, and died on his return
to Cuba. He, by the way, was one of the bold

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Spaniards who accompanied Columbus on his sec-
ond voyage to America, in 1493-

More of the credit of Florida belongs to Her-
nando de Soto. That gallant conquistador was bom
in Estremadura, Spain, about 1496. Pedro Arias
de Avila took a liking to his bright young kinsman,
helped him to obtain a university education, and in
15 19 took him along on his expedition to Darien.
De Soto won golden opinions in the New World,
and came to be trusted as a prudent yet fearless
officer. In 1528 he commanded an expedition to
explore the coast of Guatemala and Yucatan, and
in 1532 led a reinforcement of three hundred men
to assist Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. In that
golden land De Soto captured great wealth ; and the
young soldier of fortune, who had landed in America
with no more than his sword and shield, returned to
Spain with what was in those days an enormous
fortune. There he married a daughter of his bene-
factor De Avila, and thus became brother-in-law
of the dis-
coverer of
the Pacific,
— Balboa.
De Soto lent
part of his
soon-earned
fortune to

Charles V., whose constant wars had drained the
royal coffers, and Charles sent him out as governor
of Cuba and adelantado of the new province of

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74 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

Florida. He sailed in 1538 with an army of six hun-
dred men, richly equipped, — a company of adven-
turous Spaniards attracted to the banner of their
famous countryman by the desire for discovery and
gold. The expedition landed in Florida, at Espiritu
Santo Bay, in May, 1539, and re-took possession of
the unguessed wilderness for Spain.

But the brilliant success which had attended De
Soto in the highlands of Peru seemed to desert him
altogether in the swamps of Florida. It is note-
worthy that nearly all the explorers who did wonders
in South America failed when their operations were
transferred to the northern continent. The physical
geography of the two was so absolutely unlike, that,
after becoming accustomed to the necessities of the
one, the explorer seemed unable to adapt himself to
the contrary conditions of the other.

De Soto and his men wandered through the
southern part of what is now the United States for
four ghastly years. It is probable that their travels
took them through the present States of Florida,
Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana,
and the northeastern comer of Texas. In 1541
they reached the Mississippi River ; and theirs were
the first European eyes to look upon the Father of
Waters, anywhere save at its mouth, — a century and
a quarter before the heroic Frenchmen Marquette
and \ja. Salle saw it. They spent that winter along
the Washita; and in the early summer of 1542, as
they were returning down the Mississippi, brave De
Soto died, and his body was laid to rest in the
bosom of the mighty river he had discovered, — two

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A GIRDLE ROUND THE WORLD, 75

centuries before any " American " saw it. His suf-
fering and disheartened men passed a frightful
winter there; and in 1543, under command of the
Lieutenant Moscoso, they built rude vessels, and
sailed down the Mississippi to the Gulf in nineteen
days, — the first navigation in our part of America.
From the Delta they made their way westward along
the coast, and at last reached Panuco, Mexico, after
such a five years of hardship and suffering as no
Saxon explorer of America ever experienced. It
was nearly a century and a half after De Soto's
gaunt army of starving men had taken Louisiana
for Spain that it became a French possession, —
which the United States bought from France over a
century later yet.

So when Verazzano — the Florentine sent out by
France — reached America in 1524, coasted the
Atlantic seaboard from somewhere about South
Caiotina to Newfoundland, and gave the world a
short description of what he saw, Spain had circum-
navigated the globe, reached the southern tip of the
New World, conquered a vast territory, and discov-
ered at least half-a-dozen of our present States, since
the last visit of a Frenchman to America. As for
England, she was almost as unheard of still on this
side of the earth as though she had never existed.

Between De Leon and De Soto, Florida was
visited in 15 18 by Francisco de Garay, the con-
queror of Tampico. He came to subdue the
Flowery Land, but failed, and died soon after in
Mexico, — the probability being that he was poi-
soned by order of Coftez. He left even less mark

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76 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

on Florida than did De Leon, and belongs to the
class of Spanish explorers who, though real heroes,
achieved unimportant results, and are too numerous
to be even catalogued here.

In 1527 there sailed from Spain the most disas-
trous expedition which was ever sent to the New
World, — an expedition notable but for two things,
that it was perhaps the saddest in history, and that
it brought the man who first of all men crossed the
American continent, and indeed made one of the
most wonderful walks since the world began. Panfilo
de Narvaez — who had so ignominiously failed in his
attempt to arrest Cortez — was commander, with
authority to conquer Florida ; and his treasurer was
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. In 15 28 the company
landed in Florida, and forthwith began a record
of horror that makes the blood run cold. Ship-
wreck, savages, and starvation made such havoc with
the doomed band that when in 1529 Vaca and three
companions found themselves slaves to the Indians
they were the sole survivors of the expedition.

Vaca and his companions wandered from Florida
to the Gulf of California, suffering incredible dan-
gers and tortures, reaching there after a wandering
which lasted over eight years. Vaca's heroism was
rewarded. The king made him governor of Para-
guay in 1540 ; but he was as unfit for such a post as
Columbus had been for a viceroy, and soon came
back in irons to Spain, where he died.

But it was through his accounts of what he saw in
that astounding journey (for Vaca was an educated

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A GIRDLE ROUND THE WORLD. 77

man, and has left us two very interesting and valuable
books) that his countrymen were roused to begin in
earnest the exploration and colonization of what is
now the United States, — to build the first cities and
till the first farms of the greatest nation on earth.

The thirty years following the conquest of Mexico
by Cortez saw an astounding change in the New
World. They were brimful of wonders. Brilliant
discovery, unparalleled exploration, gallant conquest,
and heroic colonization followed one another in a
bewildering rush, — and but for the brave yet lim-
ited exploits of the Portuguese in South America,
Spain was all alone in it. From Kansas to Cape
Horn was one vast Spanish possession, save parts of
Brazil where the Portuguese hero Cabral had taken
a joint foothold for his country. Hundreds of
Spanish towns had been built; Spanish schools,
universities, printing-presses, books, and churches
were beginning their work of enlightenment in the
dark continents of America, and the tireless follow-
ers of Santiago were still pressing on. America,
particularly Mexico, was being rapidly settled by
Spaniards. The growth of the colonies was very
remarkable for those times, — that is, where there
were any resources to support a growing population.
The city of Puebla, for instance, in the Mexican
State of the same name, was founded in 1532 and
began with thirty- three settlers. In 1678 it had
eighty thousand people, which is twenty thousand
more than New York city had one hundred and
twenty-two years later.

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78 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

VII.

SPAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.

CORTEZ was still captain-general when Cabeza de
Vaca came into the Spanish settlements from
his eight years' wandering, with news of strange
countries to the north ; but Antonio de Mendoza was
viceroy of Mexico, and Cortez' superior, and between
him and the traitorous conqueror was endless dis-
sension. Cortez was working for himself, Mendoza
for Spain.

As Mexico became more and more thickly dotted
with Spanish settlements, the attention of the restless
world-finders began to wander toward the mysteries
of the vast and unknown country to the north. The
strange things Vaca had seen, and the stranger ones he
had heard, could not fail to excite the dauntless rovers
to whom he told them. Indeed, within a year after
the arrival in Mexico of the first transcontinental
traveller, two more of our present States were found
by his countrymen as the direct result of his narra-
tives. And now we come to one of the best-slan-
dered men of them all, — Fray Marcos de Nizza, the
discoverer of Arizona and New Mexico.

Fray (brother) Marcos was a native of the province
of Nizza, then a part of Savoy, and must have come to

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SPAIN IN THE UNITED STATES, 79

America in 1531. He accompanied Pizarro to
Peru, and thence finally returned to Mexico. He
was the first to explore the unknown lands of which
Vaca had heard such wonderful reports from the
Indians, though he had never seen them himself, —
" the Seven Cities of Cibola, full of gold," and
countless other marvels. Fray Marcos started on
foot from Culiacan (in Sinaloa, on the western edge
of Mexico) in the spring of 1539, with the negro
Estdvanico, who had been one of Vaca's compan-
ions, and a few Indians. A lay brother, Onorato,
who started with him, fell sick at once and went no
farther. Now, here was a genuine Spanish explo-
ration, a fair sample of hundreds, — this fearless
priest, unarmed, with a score of unreliable men,
starting on a year's walk through a desert where
even in this day of railroads and highways and
trails and developed water men yearly lose their
lives by thirst, to say nothing of the thousands
who have been killed there by Indians. But trifles
like these only whetted the appetite of the Spaniard ;
and Fray Marcos kept his footsore way, until early in
June, 1539, he actually came to the Seven Cities of
Cibola. These were in the extreme west of New
Mexico, around the present strange Indian pueblo
of Zuiii, which is all that is left of those famous
cities, and is itself to-day very much as the hero-
priest saw it three hundred and fifty years ago. At
the foot of the wonderful cliff of Toyallahnah, the
sacred thunder mountain of ZufLi, the negro Est^-
vanico was killed by the Indians, and Fray Marcos

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8o THB SPANISH PIONEERS.

escaped a similar fate only by a hasty retreat. He
learned what he could of the strange terraced towns
of which he got a glimpse, and returned to Mexico
with great news. He has been accused of misrepre-
sentation and exaggeration in his reports ; but if his
critics had not been so ignorant of the locality, of
the Indians and of their traditions, they never would
have spoken. Fray Marcos's statements were abso-
lutely truthful.

When the good priest told his story, we may be
sure that there was a pricking-up of ears through-
out New Spain (the general Spanish name then for
Mexico) ; and as soon as ever an armed expedition
could be fitted out, it started for the Seven Cities
of Cibola, with Fray Marcos himself as guide. Of
that expedition you shall hear in a moment. Fray
Marcos accompanied it as far as Zuni, and then
returned to Mexico, being sadly crippled by rheu-
matism, from which he never fully recovered. He
died in the convent in the City of Mexico, March

25» 1558-

The man whom Fray Marcos led to the Seven
Cities of Cibola was the greatest explorer that ever
trod the northern continent, though his explorations
brought to himself only disaster and bitterness, —
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. A native of Sala-
manca, Spain, Coronado was young, ambitious, and
already renowned. He was governor of the Mex-
ican province of New Galicia when the news of the
Seven Cities came. Mendoza, against the strong
opposition of Cortez, decided upon a move which

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SPAIN IN THE UNITED STATES, 8 1

would rid the country of a few hundred daring
young Spanish blades with whom peace did not at
all agree, and at the same time conquer new coun-
tries for the Crown. So he gave Coronado com-
mand of an expedition of about two hundred and
fifty Spaniards to colonize the lands which Fray
Marcos had discovered, with strict orders never to
come back !

Coronado and his little army left Culiacan early in
1540. Guided by the tireless priest they reached
Zuiii in July, and took the pueblo after a sharp fight,
which was the end of hostilities there. Thence
Coronado sent small expeditions to the strange
cliff-built pueblos of Moqui (in the northeastern part
of Arizona), to the grand canon of the Colorado,
and to the pueblo of Jemez in northern New Mex-
ico. That winter he moved his whole command
to Tiguex, where is now the pretty New Mexican
village of Bernalillo, on the Rio Grande, and there
had a serious and discreditable war with the Tigua
Pueblos.

It was here that he heard that golden myth which
lured him to frightful hardships, and hundreds since
to death, — the fable of the Quivira. This, so
Indians from the vast plains assured him, was an
Indian city where all was pure gold. In the spring
of 1 54 1 Coronado and his men started in quest of
the Quivira, and marched as far across those awful
plains as the centre of our present Indian territory.
Here, seeing that he had been deceived, Coronado
sent back his army to Tiguex, and himself with
6

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82 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

thirty men pushed on across the Arkansas River,
and as far as northeastern Kansas, — that is, three-
fourths of the way from the Gulf of California to
New York, and by his circuitous route much
farther.

There he found the tribe of the Quiviras, —
roaming savages who chased the buffalo, — but they
neither had gold nor knew where it was. Coronado
got back at last to Bernalillo, after an absence of
three months of incessant marching and awful hard-
ships. Soon after his return, he was so seriously
injured by a fall from his horse that his life was in
great danger. He passed the crisis, but his health
was wrecked ; and disheartened by his broken body
and by the unredeemed disappointments of the
forbidding land he had hoped to settle, he gave up
all hope of colonizing New Mexico, and in the
summer of 1542 returned to Mexico with his men.
His disobedience to the viceroy in coming back
cast him into disgrace, and he passed the remainder
of his life in comparative obscurity.

This was a sad end for the remarkable man who
had found out so many thousands of miles of the
thirsty Southwest nearly three centuries before any
of our blood saw any of it, — a well-bom, college-
bred, ambitious, and dashing soldier, and the idol of
his troops. As an explorer he stands unequalled,
but as a colonizer he utterly failed. He was a city-
bred man, and no frontiersman ; and being accus-
tomed only to Jalisco and the parts of Mexico which
lie along the Gulf of California, he knew nothing of.

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SPAIN IN THE UNITED STATES, 83

and could not adapt himself to^ the fearful deserts
of Arizona and New Mexico. It was not until half
a century later^ when there came a Spaniard who
was a bom frontiersman of the arid lands, that New
Mexico was successfully colonized.

While the discoverer of the Indian Territory and
Kansas was chasing a golden &ble across their des-
olate plains, his countr3nnen had found and were
exploring another of our States, — our golden garden
of California. Hernando de Alarcon, in 1540, sailed
up the Colorado River to a great distance from the
gulf, probably as far as Great Bend; and in 1543
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo explored the Pacific coast
of California to a hundred miles north of where
San Francisco was to be founded more than three
centuries later.

After the discouraging discoveries of Coronado,
the Spaniards for many years paid little attention to
New Mexico. There was enough doing in Mexico
itself to keep even that indomitable Spanish energy
busy for awhile in the civilizing of their new empire.
Fray Pedro de Gante had founded in Mexico, in
1524, the first schools in the New World ; and there-
after every church and convent in Spanish America
had always a school for the Indians attached. In
1524 there was not a single Indian in Mexico's
countle^ss thousands who knew what letters were;
but twenty years later such large numbers of them
had learned to read and write that Bishop Zumarraga
had a book' made for them in their own language.
By 1 543 ^^re were even industrial schools for the

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84 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

Indians in Mexico. It was this same good Bishop
Zumarraga who brought the first printing press to
the New World, in 1536. It was set up in the
City of Mexico, and was soon very actively at work.
The oldest book printed in America that remains
to us came from that press in 1539. A majority
of the first books printed there were to make the
Indian languages intelligible, — a policy of humane
scholarship which no other nation colonizing in the
New World ever copied. The first music printed in
America came from this press in 1584.

The most striking thing of all, as showing the
scholarly attitude of the Spaniards toward the new
continents, was a result entirely unique. Not only
did their intellectual activity breed among them-
selves a galaxy of eminent writers, but in a very
few years there was a school of important Indian
authors. It would be an irreparable loss to knowl-
edge of the true history of America if we were to
lose the chronicles of such Indian writers as Tezo-
zomoc, Camargo, and Pomar, in Mexico ; Juan de
Santa Cruz, Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua, in Peru ;
and many others. And what a gain to science if
we had taken pains to raise up our own aborigines
to such helpfulness to themselves and to human
knowledge !

In all other enlightened pursuits which the world
then knew, Spain's sons were making remarkable
progress here. In geography, natural history, natu-
ral philosophy, and other sciences they were as
truly the pioneers of America as they had been in

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SPAlir IN THE OmtBb STATES, 85

discovery. It is a startling fact that so early as
1579 a public autopsy on the body of an Indian was
held at the University of Mexico, to determine the
nature of an epidemic which was then devastating
New Spain. It is doubtful if by that time they had
got so far in London itself. And in still extant books
of the same period we find plans for repeating fire-
arms, and a plain hint of the telephone ! The
first printing-press did not reach the English col-
onies of America until 1638, — nearly one hundred
years behind Mexico. The whole world came very
slowly to newspapers ; and the first authentic news-
paper in its history was published in Germany in
1615. The first one in England began in 1622;
and the American colonies never had one until 1 704.
The " Mercurio Volante " (Flying Mercury), a pam-
phlet which printed news, was running in the City of
Mexico before 1693.

When the ill reports of Coronado had largely been
forgotten, there began another Spanish movement
into New Mexico and Arizona. In the mean time
there had been very important doings in Florida.
The many failures in that unlucky land had not
deterred the Spaniards firom fiirther attempts to
colonize it. At last, in 1560, the first permanent
foothold was effected there by Aviles de Menendez,
a brutal Spaniard, who nevertheless had the honor
of founding and naming the oldest city in the United
States, — St. Augustine, 1560. Menendez found
there a little colony of French- Huguenots, who had
wandered thither the year before under Ribault;

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86 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

and those whom he captured he hanged, with a
placard saying that they were executed "not as
Frenchmen, but as heretics." Two years later, the
French expedition of Dominique de Gourges cap-
tured the three Spanish forts which had been built
there, and hanged the colonists " not as Spaniards,
but as assassins," — which was a very neat revenge
in rhetoric, if an unpraiseworthy one in deed. In
1586 Sir Francis Drake, whose piratical proclivities
have already been alluded to, destroyed the friendly
colony of St. Augustine ; but it was at once rebuilt.
In 1763 Florida was ceded to Great Britain by
Spain, in exchange for Havana, which Albemarle
had captured the year before.

It is also interesting to note that the Spaniards
had been to Virginia nearly thirty years before Sir
Walter Raleigh's attempt to establish a colony there,
and full half a century before Capt. John Smith's
visit. As early as 1556 Chesapeake Bay was known
to the Spaniards as the Bay of Santa Maria ; ^d
an unsuccessful expedition had been sent to colo-
nize the country.

In 1 58 1 three Spanish missionaries — FrayAgostin
Rodriguez, Fray Francisco Lopez, and Fray Juan de
Santa Maria — started from Santa Barbara, Chihua-
hua (Mexico), with an escort of nine Spanish soldiers
under command of Francisco Sanchez Chamuscado.
They trudged up along the Rio Grande to where Ber-
nalillo now is, — a walk of a thousand miles. There
the missionaries remained to teach the gospel, while
the soldiers explored the country as for as Zuiii, and

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SPAIN IN THE UNITED STATES, 87

then returned to Santa Barbara. Chamuscado died
on the way. As for the brave missionaries who had
been left behind in the wilderness, they soon became
martyrs. Fray Santa Maria was slain by the Indians
near San Pedro, while trudging back to Mexico alone
that M. Fray Rodriguez and Fray Lopez were
assassinated by their treacherous flock at Puaray, in
December, 1581.

In the following year Antonio de Espejo, a wealthy
native of Cordova, started from Santa Barbara in
Chihuahua, with fourteen men to face the deserts
and the savages of New Mexico. He marched
up the Rio Grande to some distance above where
Albuquerque now stands, meeting no opposition
from the Pueblo Indians. He visited their cities of
Zia, Jemez, lofty Acoma, Zuiii, and far-off Moqui,
and travelled a long way out into northern Arizona.
Returning to the Rio Grande, he visited the pueblo
of Pecos, went down the Pecos River into Texas, and
thence crossed back to Santa Barbara. He intended
to return and colonize New Mexico, but his death
(probably in 1585) ended these plans ; and the only
important result of his gigantic journey was an addi-
tion to the geographical and ethnological knowledge
of the day.

In 1590 Gaspar Castaiio de Sosa, lieutenant-
governor of New Leon, was so anxious to explore
New Mexico that he made an expedition without
leave from the viceroy. He came up the Pecos
River and crossed to the Rio Grande ; and at the
pueblo of Santo Domingo was arrested by Captain

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88 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

Morlette, who had come all the way from Mexico
on that sole errand, and carried home in irons.

Juan de Onate, the colonizer of New Mexico,
and founder of the second town within the limits
of the United States, as well as of the city
which is now our next oldest, was born in Zaca-
tecas, Mexico. His family (which came from Bis-
cay) had discovered (in 1548) and now owned
some of the richest mines in the world, — those
of Zacatecas. But despite the "golden spoon in
his mouth," Onate desired to be an explorer.
The Crown refused to provide for further expe-
ditions into the disappointing north; and about
1595 Onate made a contract with the viceroy of
New Spain to colonize New Mexico at his own
expense. He made all preparations, and fitted out
his costly expedition. Just then a new viceroy was
appointed, who kept him waiting in Mexico with
all his men for over two years, ere the necessary
permission was given him to start. At last, early
in 1597, he set out with his expedition, — which
had cost him the equivalent of a million dollars,
before it stirred a step. He took with him four hun-
dred colonists, including two hundred soldiers, with
women and children, and herds of sheep and cattle.
Taking formal possession of New Mexico May 30,
1598, he moved up the Rio Grande to where the
hamlet of Chamita now is (north of Santa F6), and
there founded, in September of that year, San
Gabriel de los Espanoles (St. Gabriel of the Span-
iards), the second town in the United States.

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SPAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. 89

Onate was remarkable not only for his success
in colonizing a country so forbidding as this then
was, but also as an explorer. He ransacked all the
country round about, travelled to Acoma and put
down a revolt of its Indians, and in 1600 made
an expedition clear up into Nebraska. In 1604,
with thirty men, he marched from San Gabriel across
that grim desert to the Gulf of California, and re-
turned to San Gabriel in April, 1605. By that time
the English had penetrated no farther into the inte-
rior of America than forty or fifty miles from the
Atlantic coast.

In 1605 Onate founded Santa F^, the City of
the Holy Faith of St. Francis, about whose age a
great many foolish fables have been written. The
city actually celebrated the three hundred and
thirty-third anniversary of its founding twenty years
before it was three centuries old.

In 1606 Onate made another expedition to the far
Northeast, about which expedition we know almost
nothing; and in 1608 he was superseded by Pedro
de Peralta, the second governor of New Mexico.

Onate was of middle age when he made this very
striking record. Bom on the frontier, used to the
deserts, endowed with great tenacity, coolness, and
knowledge of frontier warfare, he was the very man
to succeed in planting the first considerable colonies
in the United States at their most dangerous and
difficult points.

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90 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

VIII.
TWO CONTINENTS MASTERED.

THIS, then, was the situation in the New World
at the beginning of the seventeenth centuiy.
Spain, having found the Americas, had, in a little
over a hundred years of ceaseless exploration and
conquest, settled and was civilizing them. She
had in the New World hundreds of towns, whose
extremes were over five thousand miles apart, with
all the then advantages of civilization, and two
towns in what is now the United States, a score of
whose States her sons had penetrated. France had
made a few gingerly expeditions, which bore no
substantial fruit; and Portugal had founded a few
comparatively unimportant towns in South Amer-
ica. England had passed the century in masterly
inactivity, — and there was not so much as an
English hut or an English man between Cape Horn
and the North Pole.

That later times have reversed the situation ;
that Spain (largely because she was drained of her
best blood by a conquest so enormous that no
nation even now could give the men or the money
to keep the enterprise abreast with the world's pro-
gress) has never regained her old strength, and is now

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TWO CONTINENTS MASTERED. 91

a drone beside the young giant of nations that has
grown, since her day, in the empire she opened, —
has nothing to do with the obligation of American
history to give her justice for the past. Had there
been no Spain four hundred years ago, there would
be no United States to-day. It is a most fascinating
story to every genuine American, — for every one
worthy of the name admires heroism and loves fair-
play everywhere, and is first of all interested in the
truth about his own country.

By 1680 the Rio Grande valley in New Mexico
was beaded with Spanish settlements from Santa
Cruz to below Socorro, two hundred miles; and
there were also colonies in the Taos valley, the ex-
treme north of the Territory. From 1600 to 1680
there had been countless expeditions throughout
the Southwest, penetrating even the deadly Llano
Estacado (Staked Plain). The heroism which held
the Southwest so long was no less wonderful than
the exploration that found it. The life of the
colonists was a daily battle with niggard Nature —
for New Mexico was never fertile — and with dead-
liest danger. For three centuries they were cease-
lessly harried by the fiendish Apaches; and up to
1680 there was no rest from the attempts of the
Pueblos (who were actually with and all about the
settlers) at insurrection. The statements of closet
historians that the Spaniards enslaved the Pueblos,
or any other Indians of New Mexico; that they
forced them to choose between Christianity and
death ; that they made them work in the mines, and

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9d THE ^PAHiSti PtONBBRS.

the like, — are all entirely untrue. The whole policy
of Spain toward the Indians of the New World was
one of humanity, justice, education, and moral
suasion ; and though there were of course individual
Spaniards who broke the strict laws of their country
as to the treatment of the Indians, they were duly
punished therefor.

Yet the mere presence of the strangers in their
country was enough to stir the jealous nature of the
Indians; and in 1680 a murderous and causeless
plot broke out in the red Pueblo Rebellion. There
were then fifteen hundred Spaniards in the Terri-
tory, — all living in Santa F^ or in scattered farm
settlements ; for Chamita had long been abandoned.

Thirty-four Pueblo towns were in the revolt, under
the lead of a dangerous Tehua Indian named Pop6.
Secret runners had gone from pueblo to pueblo, and
the murderous blow fell upon the whole Territory
simultaneously. On that bitter loth of August,
1680, over four hundred Spaniards were assassi-
nated, — including twenty-one of the gentle mis-
sionaries who, unarmed and alone, had scattered
over the wilderness that they might save the souls
and teach the minds of the savages.

Antonio de Otermin was then governor and cap-
tain-general of New Mexico, and was attacked in
his capital of Santa F6 by a greatly-outnumbering
army of Indians. The one hundred and twenty
Spanish soldiers, cooped up in their little adobe
city, soon found themselves unable to hold it longer
against their swarming besiegers ; and after a week's

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TWO CONTINENTS MASTERED, 93

desperate defence, they made a sortie, and hewed
their way through to liberty, taking their women and
children with them. They retreated down the Rio
Grande, avoiding an ambush set for them at Sandia
by the Indians, and reached the pueblo of Isleta,
twelve miles below the present city of Albuquerque,
in safety ; but the village was deserted, and the Span-
iards were obliged to continue their flight to £1
Paso, Texas, which was then only a Spanish mission
for the Indians.

In 1 68 1 Governor Otermin made an invasion as
far north as the pueblo of Cochiti, twenty-five miles
west of Santa F6, on the Rio Grande ; but the hos-
tile Pueblos forced him to retreat again to £1 Paso.
In 1687 Pedro Reneros Posada made another dash
into New Mexico, and took the rock-built pueblo of
Santa Ana by a most brilliant and bloody assault
But he also had to retire. In 1688 Domingo
Jironza Petriz de Cruzate — the greatest soldier
on New Mexican soil — made an expedition, in
which he took the pueblo of Zia by storm (a still
more remarkable achievement than Posada's), and
in turn retreated to £1 Paso.

At last the final conqueror of New Mexico,
Diego de Vargas, came in 1692. Marching to
Santa F6, and thence as far as ultimate Moqui,
with only eighty-nine men, he visited every pueblo
in the Province, meeting no opposition from the
Indians, who had been thoroughly cowed by
Cruzate. Returning to £1 Paso^ he came again
to New Mexico in 1693, this time with about one

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94 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

hundred and fifty soldiers and a number of col
onists. Now the Indians were prepared for him,
and gave him the bloodiest reception ever accorded
in New Mexico. They broke out first at Santa F6,
and he had to storm that town, which he took after
two days' fighting. Then began the siege of the
Black Mesa of San Ildefonso, which lasted off and
on for nine months. The Indians had removed
their village to the top of that New Mexican Gib-
raltar, and there resisted four daring assaults, but
were finally worn into surrender.

Meantime De Vargas had stormed the impreg-
nable citadel of the Potrero Viejo, and the beetling
cliff of San Diego de Jemez, — two exploits which
rank with the storming of the Penol of Mixton ^ in
Jalisco (Mexico) and of the vast rock of Acoma, as
the most marvellous assaults in all American his-
tory. The capture of Quebec bears no compari-
son to them.

These costly lessons kept the Indians quiet until
1696, when they broke out again. This rebellion
was not so formidable as the first, but it gave New
Mexico another watering with blood, and was sup-
pressed only after three months* fighting. The
Spaniards were already masters of the situation;
and the quelling of that revolt put an end to all
trouble with the Pueblos, — who remain with us
to this day practically undiminished in numbers,
though they have fewer towns, a quiet, peaceful.
Christianized race of industrious farmers, living
^ Pronounced Mish-t6n.

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TWO CONTINENTS MASTERED, 95

monuments to the humanity and the moral teaching
of their conquerors.

Then came the last century, a dismal hundred
years of ceaseless harassment by the Apaches^
NavajoSy and Comanches, and occasionally by the
Utes, — a harassment which had hardly ceased a
decade ago. The Indian wars were so constant,
the explorations (like that wonderful attempt to
open a road from San Antonio de Bejar, Texas, to
Monterey, California) so innumerable, that their
individual heroism is lost in their own bewildering
multitude.

More than two centuries ago the Spaniards ex-
plored Texas, and settlement soon followed. There
were several minor expeditions; but the first of
magnitude was that of Alpnzo de Leon, governor
of the Mexican State of Coahuila, who made exten-
sive explorations of Texas in 1689. By the begin-
ning of the last century there were several Spanish
settlements and presidios (garrisons) in what was to
become, more than a hundred years later, the largest
of the United States.

The Spanish colonization of Colorado was not
extensive, and they had no towns north of the Arkan-
sas River ; but even in settling our Centennial State
they were half a century ahead of us, as they were
some centuries ahead in finding it.

In California the Spaniards were very active. For
a long time there were minor expeditions which were
unsuccessful. Then the Franciscans came in 1769
to San Diego Bay, landed on the bare sands where a

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96 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

million-dollar American hotel stands to-day, and at
once began to teach the Indians, to plant olive-
orchards and vineyards, and to rear the noble stone
churches so beautifully described by the author of
" Ramona," which shall remain as monuments of a
sublime faith long after the race that built them has
gone from off the face of the earth.

California had a long line of Spanish governors —
the last of whom, brave, courtly, lovable old Pio Pico,
has just died — before our acquisition of that garden-
State of States. The Spaniards discovered gold there
centuries, and were mining it a decade, before an
" American " dreamed of the precious deposit which
was to make such a mark on civilization, and had
found the rich placer-fields of New Mexico a decade
earlier yet.

In Arizona, Father Franciscus Eusebius Kuehne,*
a Jesuit of Austrian birth but under Spanish auspices,
was first to establish the missions on the Gila River,
— from 1689 to 1 71 7 (the date of his death). He
made at least four appalling journeys on foot from
Sonora to the Gila, and descended that stream to its
junction with the Colorado. It would be extremely
interesting, did space permit, to follow fully the wan-
derings and achievements of that class of pioneers
of America who have left such a wonderful impress
on the whole Southwest, — the Spanish missiona-
ries. Their zeal and their heroism were infinite.
No desert was too frightful for them, no danger
too appalling. Alone, unarmed, they traversed the
^ Often misspelled Kino.

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TiVO CONTINENTS MASTERED, 97

most forbidding lands and braved the most deadly
savages, and left in the lives of the Indians such a
proud monument as mailed explorers and conquer-
ing armies never made.

The foregoing is a running summary of the early
pioneering of America, — the only pioneering for
more than a century, and the greatest pioneering
for still another century. As for the great and won-
derful work at last done by our own blood, not only
in conquering part of a continent, but in making a
mighty nation, the reader needs no help from me to
enable him to comprehend it, — it has already found
its due place in history. To record all the heroisms
of the Spanish pioneers would fill, not this book, but
a library. I have deemed it best, in such an enor-
mous field, to draw the condensed outline, as has
now been done ; and then to illustrate it by giving
in detail a few specimens out of the host of hero-
isms. I have already given a hint of how many con-
quests and explorations and dangers there were;
and now I wish to show by fair "sample pages"
what Spanish conquest and exploration and endur-
ance really were.

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II.

SPECIMEN PIONEERS.

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I.

THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER.

THE achievements of the explorer are among
the most important, as they are among the
most fascinating, of human heroisms. The qualities
of mind and body necessary to his task are rare and
admirable. He should have many sides and be
strong in each, — the rounded man that Nature
meant man to be. His^ body need not be as strong as
Samson's, nor his mind as Napoleon's, nor his heart
the most fully developed heart on earth ; but mind,
heart, and body he needs, and each in the measure
of a strong man. There is hardly another calling in
which every muscle, so to speak, of his threefold
nature will be more constantly or more evenly called
into play.

It is a curious fact that some of the very greatest
of human achievements have come about by chance.
Many among the most important discoveries in the
history of mankind have been made by men who were
not seeking the great truth they found. Science is the
result not only of study, but of precious accidents ;
and this is as true of history. It is an interesting
study in itself, — the influence which happy blun-

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102 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

deis and unintended happenings have had upon
civilization.

In exploration, as in invention, accident has played
its important part. Some of the most valuable ex-
plorations have been made by men who had no more
idea of being explorers than they had of inventing
a railroad to the moon ; and it is a striking fact that
the first inland exploration of America, and the two
most wonderful journeys in it, were not only acci-
dents, but the crowning misfortunes and disappoint-
ments of the men who had hoped for very different
things.

Exploration, intended or involuntary, has not only
achieved great results for civilization, but in the doing
has scored some of the highest feats of human hero-
ism. America in particular, perhaps, has been the
field of great and remarkable journeys ; but the two
men who made the most astounding journeys in
America are still almost unheard of among us.
They are heroes whose names are as Greek to the
vast majority of Americans, albeit they are men in
whom Americans particularly should take deep and
admiring interest. They were Alvar Nunez Cabeza
de Vaca, the first American traveller ; and Andres
Docampo, the man who walked farther on this con-
tinent than any other.

In a world so big and old and full of great deeds
as this, it is extremely difficult to say of any one
man, '< He was the greatest '' this or that ; and even
in the matter of journeys there have been bewilder-
ingly many great ones, of the most wonderful of which

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THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER. 103

we have heard least. As explorers we cannot give
Vaca and Docampo great rank ; though the latter*s
explorations were not contemptible, and Vaca's were
of great importance. But as physical achievements
the journeys of these neglected heroes can safely be
said to be without paraUel. They were the most
wonderful walks ever made by man. Both men made
their records in America, and each made most of his
journey in what is now the United States.

Cabeza de Vaca was the first European really to
penetrate the then ''Dark Continent" of North
America, as he was by centuries the first to cross
the continent. His nine years of wandering on
foot, imarmed, naked, starving, among wild beasts
and wilder men, with no other attendants than three
as ill-fated comrades, gave the world its first glimpse
of the United States inland, and led to some of the
most stirring and important achievements connected
with its early history. Nearly a century before the
Pilgrim Fathers planted their noble commonwealth
on the edge of Massachusetts, seventy-five years
before the first English settlement was made in the
New World, and more than a generation before there
was a single Caucasian settler of any blood within the
area of the present United States, Vaca and his gaunt
followers had trudged across this unknown land.

It is a long way back to those days. Henry VIII.
was then king of England, and sixteen rulers have
since occupied that throne. Elizabeth, the Virgin
Queen, was not bom when Vaca started on his ap-
palling journey, and did not begin to reign until

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I04 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

twenty years after he had ended it. It was fifty
years before the birth of Captain John Smith, the
founder of Virginia ; a generation before the birth
of Shakspere, and two and a half generations before
Milton. Henry Hudson, the famous explorer for
whom one of our chief rivers is named, was not yet
bom. Columbus himself had been dead less than
twenty-five years, and the conqueror of Mexico had
seventeen yet to live. It was sixty years before the
world had heard of such a thing as a newspaper,
and the best geographers still thought it possible to
sail through America to Asia. There was not a white
man in North America above the middle of Mexico ;
nor had one gone two hundred miles inland in this
continental wilderness, of which the world knew
almost less than we know now of the moon.

The name of Cabeza de Vaca may seem to us a
curious one. It means "Head of a Cow.'* But
this quaint family name was an honorable one in
Spain, and had a brave winning : it was earned at
the battle of Naves de Tolosa in the thirteenth cen-
tury, one of the decisive engagements of all those
centuries of war with the Moors. Alvar's grand-
father was also a man of some note, being the con-
queror of the Canary Islands.

Alvar was bom in Xeres * de la Frontera, Spain,
toward the last of the fifteenth century. Of his
early life we know little, except that he had already
won some consideration when in 1527, a mature
man, he came to the New World. In that year we
^ Pronounced Hay-ress.

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THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER. 105

find him sailing from Spain as treasurer and sheriff
of the expedition of six hundred men with which
Panfilo de Narvaez intended to conquer and colo-
nize the Flowery Land, discovered a decade before
by Ponce de Leon.

They reached Santo Domingo, and thence sailed
to Cuba. On Good Friday, 1528, ten months after
leaving Spain, they reached Florida, and landed at
what is now named Tampa Bay. Taking formal pos-
session of the country for Spain, they set out to
explore and conquer the wilderness. At Santo Do-
mingo shipwreck and desertion had already cost
them heavily, and of the original six hundred men
there were but three hundred and forty-five left.
No sooner had they reached Florida than the most
fearful misfortunes began, and with every day grew
worse. Food there was almost none ; hostile Indi-
ans beset them on every hand ; and the countless
rivers, lakes, and swamps made progress difficult
and dangerous. The little army was fast thinning
out under war and starvation, and plots were rife
among the survivors. They were so enfeebled that
they could not even get back to their vessels. Strug-
gUng through at last to the nearest point on the
coast, far west of Tampa Bay, they decided that
their only hope was to build boats and try to coast
to the Spanish settlements in Mexico. Five rude
boats were made with great toil; and the poor
wretches turned westward along the coast of the
Gulf. Storms scattered the boats, and wrecked one
after the other. Scores of the haggard adventurers

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Io6 THB SPANISH PIONEERS.

were diownedy Narvaez among them; and scores
dashed upon an inhospitable shore perished by ex-
posure and starvation. The Uving were forced to
subsist upon the dead. Of the five boats, three had
gone down with aU on board ; of the eighty men
who escaped the wreck but fifteen were still alive.
All their arms and clothing were at the bottom of
the Gulf.

The survivors were now on Mai Hado, '^ the Isle
of Misfortune.'' We know no more of its location
than that it was west of the mouth of the Mississippi.
Their boats had crossed that mighty current where
it plunges out into the Gul( and theirs were the first
European eyes to see even this much of the Father
of Waters. The Indians of the island, who had no
better larder than roots, berries, and fish, treated
their unfortunate guests as generously as was in their
power ; and Vaca has written gratefiilly of them.

In the spring his thirteen surviving companions
determined to escape. Vaca was too sick to walk,
and they abandoned him to his fate. Two other
sick men, Oviedo and Alaniz, were also left behind ;
and the latter soon perished. It was a pitiable plight
in which Vaca now found himself. A naked skele-
ton, scarce able to move, deserted by his fiiends and
at the mercy of savages, it is smaU wonder that, as
he tells us, his heart sank within him. But he was
one of the men who never " let go." A constant
soul held up the poor, worn body; and as the
weather grew less rigorous, Vaca slowly recovered
from his sickness.

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THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER,

107

For nearly six years he lived an incomparably
lonely life, bandied about from tribe to tribe of
Indians^ sometimes as a slave, and sometimes only
a despised outcast. Oviedo fled from some danger,
and he was never heard of afterward ; Vaca faced
it, and lived. That his sufferings were almost be-
yond endurance cannot be doubted. Even when
he was not the victim of brutal treatment, he was
the worthless encumbrance, the useless interloper,
among poor savages who lived the most miserable
and precarious lives. That they did not kill him
speaks well for their humane kindness.

The thirteen who escaped had fared even worse.
They had fallen into cruel hands, and all had been
slain except three, who were reserved for the harder
fete of slaves. These three were Andres Dorantes,
a native of Bejar ; Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado,
a native of Salamanca ; and the negro Est^vanico,
who was bom in Azamor, Africa. These three and
Vaca were all that were now left of the gallant four
hundred and fifty men (among whom we do not
count the deserters at Santo Domingo) who had
sailed with such high hopes from Spain, in 1527, to
conquer a comer of the New World, — four naked,
tortured, shivering shadows; and even they were
separated, though they occasionally heard vaguely
of one another, and made vain attempts to come to-
gether. It was not until September, 1534 (nearly
seven years later), that Dorantes, Castillo, Est^van-
ico, and Vaca were reunited ; and the spot where
they found this happiness was somewhere in eastern
Texas, west of the Sabine River.

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Io8 THB SPANISH PIONEERS.

But Vaca's six years of loneliness and sufTering
unspeakable had not been in vain^ — for he had
acquired, unknowingly, the key to safety ; and amid
all those horrors, and without dreaming of its signi-
ficance, he had stumbled upon the very strange and
interesting clew which was to save them all. With-
out it, all four would have perished in the wilderness,
and the world would never have known their end.

While they were still on the Isle of Misfortune, a
proposition had been made which seemed the
height of the ridiculous. " In that isle," says Vaca,
" they wished to make us doctors, without examin-
ing us or asking our titles ; for they themselves cure
sickness by blowing upon the sick one. With that
blowing, and with their hands, they remove from
him the disease ; and they bade us do the same, so
as to be of some use to them. We laughed at this,
saying that they were piaking fun, and that we knew
not how to heal ; and for that they took away our
food, till we should do that which they said. And
seeing our stubbornness, an Indian said to me that
I did not understand ; for that it did no good for
one to know how, because the very stones and other
things of the field have power to heal, . . . and
that we, who were men, must certainly have greater
power."

This was a characteristic thing which the old
Indian said, and a key to the remarkable super-
stitions of his race. But the Spaniards, of course,
could not yet understand.

Presently the savages removed to the mainland.

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THB FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER. 109

They were always in abject poverty, and many of
them perished from starvation and from the ex-
posures incident to their wretched existence. For
three months in the year they had " nothing but
shell-fish and very bad water ; " and at other times
only poor berries and the like ; and their year was
a series of wanderings hither and thither in quest
of these scant and unsatisfactory foods.

It was an important fact that Vaca was utterly
useless to the Indians. He could not serve them as
a warrior ; for in his wasted condition the bow was
more than he could master. As a hunter he was
equally unavailable ; for, as he himself says, " it was
impossible for him to trail animals.*' Assistance in
carrying water or fuel or anything of the sort wa^s
impossible ; for he was a man, and his Indian mas-
ters could not let a man do woman's work. So,
among these starveling nomads, this man who could
not help but must be fed was a real burden ; and
the only wonder is that they did not kill him.

Under these circumstances, Vaca began to wander
about. His indifferent captors paid little attention
to his movements, and by degrees he got to making
long trips north, and up and down the coast. In time
he began to see a chance for trading, in which the
Indians encouraged him, glad to find their "white
elephant" of some use at last. From the northern
tribes he brought down skins and almagre (the red
clay so indispensable to the savages for face-paint),
flakes of flint to make arrow-heads, hard reeds for
the shafts, and tassels of deer-hair dyed red. These

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I lO THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

things he readily exchanged among the coast tribes
for shells and shell-beads^ and the like, — which, in
turn, were in demand among his northern customers.

On account of their constant wars, the Indians
could not venture outside their own range ; so this
safe go-between trader was a convenience which
they encouraged. So far as he was concerned,
though the life was still one of great suffering, he
was constantly gaining knowledge which would be
useful to him in his never-forgotten plan of getting
back to the world. These lonely trading expedi-
tions of his covered thousands of miles on foot
through the trackless wildernesses; and through
them his aggregate wanderings were much greater
than those of either of his fellow-prisoners.

It was during these long and awful tramps that
Cabeza de Vaca had one particularly interesting
experience. He was the first European who saw
the great American bison, the buffalo, which has
become practically extinct in the last decade, but
once roamed the plains in vast hordes, — and first
by many years. He saw them and ate their meat in
the Red River country of Texas, and has left us a
description of the " hunchback cows." None of his
companions ever saw one, for in their subsequent
journey together the four Spaniards passed south of
the buffalo-country.

Meanwhile, as I have noted, the forlorn and naked
trader had had the duties of a doctor forced upon
him. He did not understand what this involuntary
profession might do for him, — he was simply pushed

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THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER. m

into it at first, and followed it not from choice, but
to keep from having trouble. He was '' good for
nothing but to be a medicine-man." He had
learned the peculiar treatment of the aboriginal
wizards, though not their fundamental ideas. The
Indians still look upon sickness as a ''being pos-
sessed;" and their idea of doctoring is not so
much to cure disease, as to exorcise the bad
spirits which cause it.

This is done by a sleight-of-hand rigmarole, even
to this day. The medicine-man would suck the
sore spot, and pretend thus to extract a stone or
thorn which was supposed to have been the cause of
trouble ; and the patient was " cured." Cabeza de
Vaca began to " practise medicine " after the Indian
fashion. He says himself, '' I have tried these
things, and they were very successful."^

When the four wanderers at last came together
after their long separation, — in which all had suf-
fered untold horrors, — Vaca had then, though still
indefinitely, the key of hope. Their first plan was
to escape from their present captors. It took ten
months to effect it, and meantime their distress was
great, as it had been constantly for so many years.
At times they lived on a daily ration of two hand-
fuls of wild peas and a little water. Vaca relates
what a godsend it seemed when he was allowed to
scrape hides for the Indians ; he carefully saved the
scrapings, which served him as food for days. They
had no ck)thing, and there was no shelter ; and con-
stant exposure to heat and cold and the myriad

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112 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

thorns of that country caused them to " shed their
skin like snakes."

At last, in August, 1535, the four sufferers es-
caped to a tribe called the Avavares. But now a
new career began to open to them. That his com-
panions might not be as useless as he had been,
Cabeza de Vaca had instructed them in the " arts "
of Indian medicine-men ; and all four began to put
their new and strange profession into practice. To
the ordinary Indian charms and incantations these
humble Christians added fervent prayers to the true
God. * It was a sort of sixteenth-century " faith-
cure ; " and naturally enough, among such supersti-
tious patients it was very effective. Their multitu-
dinous cures the amateur but sincere doctors, with
touching humility, attributed entirely to God ; but
what great results these might have upon their own
fortunes now began to dawn upon them. From
wandering, naked, starving, despised beggars, and
slaves to brutal savages, they suddenly became per-
sonages of note, — still paupers and sufferers, as
were all their patients, but paupers of mighty power.
There is no fairy tale more romantic than the career
thenceforth of these poor, brave men walking pain-
fully across a continent as masters and benefactors
of all that host of wild people.

Trudging on from tribe to tribe, painfully and
slowly the white medicine-men crossed Texas and
came close to our present New Mexico. It has long
been reiterated by the closet historians that they
entered New Mexico, and got even as far north as

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THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER.

"3

where Santa F6 now is. But modern scientific
research has absolutely proved that they went on
from Texas through Chihuahua and Sonora, and
never saw an inch of New Mexico.

With each new tribe the Spaniards paused awhile
to heal the sick. Everjrwhere they were treated
with the greatest kindness their poor hosts could
give, and with religious awe. Their progress is a
very valuable object-lesson, showing just how some
Indian myths are formed : first, the successful medi-
cine-man, who at his death or departure is remem-
bered as a hero, then as a demigod, then as divinity.

In the Mexican States they first found agricultural
Indians, who dwelt in houses of sod and boughs, and
had beans and pumpkins. These were the Jovas, a
branch of the Pimas. Of the scores of tribes they
had passed through in our present Southern States
not one has been fully identified. They were poor,
wandering creatures, and long ago disappeared from
the earth. But in the Sierra Madre of Mexico they
found superior Indians, whom we can recognize still.
Here they found the men unclad, but the women
"very honest in their dress," — with cotton tunics
of their own weaving, with half-sleeves, and a skirt
to the knee ; and over it a skirt of dressed deerskin
reaching to the ground, and fastened in front with
straps. They washed their clothing with a soapy
root, — the amole, now similarly used by Indians and
Mexicans throughout the Southwest. These people
gave Cabeza de Vaca some turquoise, and five arrow-
heads each chipped from a single emerald.
8

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114 ^^^ SPANISH PIONEERS.

In this village in southwestern Sonora the Span*
iards stayed three days, living on split deer-hearts ;
whence they named it the " Town of Hearts."

A day's march beyond they met an Indian wear-
ing upon his necklace the buckle of a sword-belt
and a horseshoe nail ; and their hearts beat high at
this first sign, in all their eight years' wandering, of
the nearness of Europeans. The Indian told them
that men with beards like their own had come from
the sky and made war upon his people.

The Spaniards were now entering Sinaloa, and
found themselves in a fertile land of flowing streams.
The Indians were in mortal fear ; for two brutes of
a class who were very rare among the Spanish con-
querors (they were, I am glad to say, punished for
their violation of the strict laws of Spain) were then
trying to catch slaves. The soldiers had just left ;
but Cabeza de Vaca and Est^vanico, with eleven
Indians, hurried forward on their trail, and next day
overtook four Spaniards, who led them to their
rascally captain, Diego de Alcardz. It was long
before that officer could believe the wondrous story
told by the naked, torn, shaggy, wild man ; but at
last his coldness was thawed, and he gave a certifi-
cate of the date and of the condition in which Vaca
had come to him, and then sent back for Dorantes
and Castillo. Five days later these arrived, accom-
panied by several hundred Indians.

Alcardz and his partner in crime, Cebreros, wished
to enslave these aborigines; but Cabeza de Vaca,
regardless of his own dtmger in taking such a stand,

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THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER. 1 15

indignantly opposed the infamous plan, and finally
forced the villains to abandon it. The Indians
were saved ; and in all their joy at getting back to
the world, the Spanish wanderers parted with sincere
regret from these simple-hearted friends. After a
few days' hard travel they reached the post of Culi-
acan about the first of May, 1536, where they were
warmly welcomed by the ill-Hsited heio Mekhior
Diaz. He led one of the earliest expeditions ( in
1539) to the unknown north; and in 1540, on a
second expedition across part of Arizona and into
California, was accidentally killed.

After a short rest the wanderers left for Compos-
tela, then the chief town of the province of New
Galicia, — itself a small journey of three hundred
miles through a land swarming with hostile savages.
At last they reached the City of Mexico in safety,
and were received with great honor. But it was
long before they could accustom themselves to eat-
ing the food and wearing the clothing of civilized
people.

The negro remained in Mexico. On the loth of
April, 1537, Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo, and Dorantes
sailed for Spain, arriving in August. The chief hero
never came back to North America, but we hear of
Dorantes as being there in the following year. Their
report of what they saw, and of the stranger coun-
tries to the north of which they had heard, had
already set on foot the remarkable expeditions which
resulted in the discovery of Arizona, New Mexico,
our Indian Territory, Kansas, and Colorado, and

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1 16 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

brought about the building of the first European
towns in the inland area of the United States.
Est^vanico was engaged with Fray Marcos in the
discovery of New Mexico, and was slain by the
Indians.

Cabeza de Vaca, as a reward for his then unpar-
alleled walk of much more than ten thousand miles
in the unknown land, was made governor of Para-
guay in 1 5 40. He was not qualified for the place, and
returned to Spain in disgrace. That he was not to
blame, however, but was rather the victim of circum-
stances, is indicated by the fact that he was restored
to favor and received a pension of two thousand
ducats. He died in Seville at a good old age.

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THE GREATEST AMERICAN TRAVELLER. 117

IL

THE GREATEST AMERICAN TRAVELLER.

THE student most familiar with history finds
himself constantly astounded by the journeys
of the Spanish Pioneers. If they had done nothing
else in the New World, their walks alone were enough
to earn them fame. Such a number of similar trips
over such a wilderness were never heard of elsewhere.
To comprehend those rides or tramps of thousands
of miles, by tiny bands or single heroes, one must
be familiar with the country traversed, and know
something of the times when these exploits were
performed. The Spanish chroniclers of the day do
not dilate upon the difficulties and dangers: it is
almost a pity that they had not been vain enough to
" make more " of their obstacles. But however:
curt the narrative may be on these points, the ob-
stacles were there and had to be overcome ; and to
this very day, after three centuries and a half have
mitigated that wilderness which covered half a world,
have tamed its savages, filled it with convenient
stations, crossed it with plain roads, and otherwise
removed ninety per cent of its terrors, such journeys
as were looked upon as every-day matters by those

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Il8 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

hardy heroes would find few bold enough to under-
take them. The only record at all comparable to
that Spanish overrunning of the New World was the
story of the California Argonauts of '49, who flocked
across the great plains in the most remarkable shift-
ing of population of which history knows ; but even
that was petty, so far as area, hardship, danger, and
endurance went, beside the travels of the Pioneers.
Thousand-mile marches through the deserts, or the
still more fatal tropic forests, were too many to be
even catalogued. It is one thing to follow a trail,
and quite another to penetrate an absolutely track-
less wilderness. A big, well-armed wagon-train is
one thing, and a little squad on foot or on jaded
horses quite another. A journey from a known
point to a known point — both in civilization,
though the wilderness lies between — is very differ-
ent from a journey from somewhere, through the un-
known, to nowhere ; whose starting, course, and end
are all untrodden and unguessed wilds. I have no
desire to disparage the heroism of our Argonauts, —
they made a record of which any nation should be
proud; but they never had a chance to match
the deeds of their brother-heroes of another tongue
and another age.

The walk of Alvar Nufiez Cabeza de Vaca, the first
American traveller, was surpassed by the achieve-
ment of the poor and forgotten soldier Andres Do-
campo. Cabeza de Vaca tramped much more than
ten thousand miles, but Docampo much over twenty

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THE GREATEST AMERICAN TRAVELLER. 119

thousand, and under as fearful hardships. The ex-
plorations of Vaca were far more valuable to the
world ; yet neither of them set out with the inten-
tion of exploring. But Docampo did make a fear-
ful walk voluntarily, and for a heroic purpose, which
resulted in his later enormous achievement; while
Vaca's was merely the heroism of a very uncom-
mon man in escaping misfortune. Docampo's tramp
lasted nine years; and though he left behind no
book to relate his experiences, as did Vaca, the
skeleton of his story as it remains to us is extremely
characteristic and suggestive of the times, and re-
counts other heroism than that of the brave soldier.

When Coronado first came to New Mexico in
1540, he brought four missionaries with his little
army. Fray Marcos returned soon from Zuni to
Mexico, on account of his physical infirmities.
Fray Juan de la Cruz entered earnestly into mis-
sion-work among the Pueblos; and when Coro-
nado and his whole force abandoned the Territory,
he insisted upon remaining behind among his dusky
wards at Tiguex (Bernalillo). He was a very old
man, and fully expected to give up his life as soon
as his countrymen ^ould be gone ; and so it was.
He was murdered by the Indians about the 25th
of November, 1542.

The lay-brother. Fray Luis Descalona, also a very
old man, chose for his parish the pueblo of Tshi-
quite (Pecos), and remained there after the Span-
iards had left the country. He built himself a little
hut outside the great fortified town of the savages,

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130 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

and there taught those who would listen to him, and
tended his little flock of sheep, — the remnants of
those Coronado had brought, which were the first
that ever entered the present United States. The
people came to love him sincerely, — all save the
wizards, who hated him for his influence ; and these
finally murdered him, and ate the sheep.

Fray Juan de Padilla, the youngest of the four mis-
sionaries, and the first martyr on the soil of Kan-
sas, was a native of Andalusia, Spain, and a man of
great energy both mentally and physically. He
himself made no mean record as a foot-traveller,
and our professional pedestrians would stand aghast
if confronted with the thousands of desert miles this
tireless apostle to the Indians plodded in the wild
Southwest. He had already held very important
positions in Mexico, but gladly gave up his honors
to become a poor missionary among the savages of
the unknown north. Having walked with Corona-
do's force from Mexico across the deserts to the
Seven Cities of Cibola, Fray Padilla trudged to
Moqui with Pedro de Tobar and his squad of twenty
men. Then plodding back to Zuiii, he soon set
forth again with Hernando de Alvarado and twenty
men, on a tramp of about a thousand miles more.
He was in this expedition with the first Europeans
that ever saw the lofty town of Acoma, the Rio
Grande within what is now New Mexico, and the
great pueblo of Pecos.

In the spring of 1541, when the handful of an
army was all gathered at Bernalillo, and Coronado

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THE GREATEST AMERICAN TRAVELLER, 12 1

set out to chase the fatal golden myth of the Qui-
vira, Fray Padilla accompanied him. In that march
of one hundred and four days across the barren
plains before they reached the Quiviras in north-
eastern Kansas, the explorers suffered tortures for
water and sometimes for food. The treacherous
guide misled them, and they wandered long in a
circle, covering a fearful distance, — probably over
fifteen hundred miles. The expedition was mounted,
but in those days the humble padres went afoot.
Finding only disappointment, the explorers marched
all the way back to Bernalillo, — though by a less cir-
cuitous route, — and Fray Padilla came with them.
But he had already decided that among these
hostile, roving, buffalo-living Sioux and other In-
dians of the plains should be his field of labor;
and when the Spanish evacuated New Mexico, he
remained. With him were the soldier Andres Do-
campo, two young men of Michuacan, Mexico,
named Lucas and Sebastian, called the Donados,
and a few Mexican Indian boys. In the fall of
1542 the little party left Bernalillo on its thou-
sand-mile march. Andrds alone was mounted ; the
missionary and the Indian boys trudged along the
sandy way afoot. They went by way of the pueblo
of Pecos, thence into and across a comer of what is
now Colorado, and nearly the whole length of the
great State of Kansas. At last, after a long and
weary tramp, they reached the temporary lodge-
villages of the Quivira Indians. Coronado had
planted a large cross at one of these villages, and

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122 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

here Fray Padilla established his mission. In time
the hostile savages lost their distrust, and "loved
him as a father." At last he decided to move on
to another nomad tribe, where there seemed greater
need of his presence. It was a dangerous step ; for
not only might the strangers receive him murder-
ously, but there was equal risk in leaving his present
flock. The superstitious Indians were loath to lose
the presence of such a great medicine-man as they
believed the Fray to be, and still more loath to have
such a benefit transferred to their enemies, — for all
these roving tribes were at war with one another.
Nevertheless, Fray Padilla determined to go, and
set out with his little retinue. One day's journey
from the villages of the Quiviras, they met a band of
Indians out on the war-path. Seeing the approach
of the savages, the good Father thought first for his
companions. Andres still had his horse, and the
boys were fleet runners.

" Flee, my children ! " cried Fray Padilla. " Save
yourselves, for me ye cannot help, and why should
all die together? Run ! "

They at first refused, but the missionary insisted ;
and as they were helpless against the savages, they
finally obeyed and fled. This may not seem, at first
thought, the most heroic thing to do, but an under-
standing of their time exonerates them. Not only
were they humble men used to give the good priests
implicit obedience, but there was another and a more
potent motive. In those days of earnest faith, mar-
tyrdom was looked upon as not only a heroism but

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THE GREATEST AMERICAN TRAVELLER, 123

a prophecy; it was believed to indicate new tri-
umphs for Christianity, and it was a duty to carry
back to the world the news. If they stayed and were
slain with him, — as I am sure these faithful followers
were not physically afraid to do, — the lesson and
glory of his martyrdom would be lost to the world.

Fray Juan knelt on the broad prairie and com-
mended his soul to God; and even as he prayed,
the Indians riddled him with arrows. They dug a
pit and cast therein the body of the first Kansas
martyr, and piled upon it a great pile of stones.
This was in the year 1542.

Andres Docampo and the boys made their escape
at the time, but were soon captured by other Indians
and kept as slaves for ten months. They were beaten
and starved, and obliged to perform the most labori-
ous and menial tasks. At last, after long planning
and many unsuccessful attempts, they escaped from
their barbarous captors. Then for more than eight
years they wandered on foot, unarmed and alone,
up and down the thirsty and inhospitable plains,
enduring incredible privations and dangers. At last,
after those thousands of footsore miles, they walked
into the Mexican town of Tampico, on the great
Gulf. They were received as those come back from
the dead. We lack the details of that grim and
matchless walk, but it is historically established.
For nine years these poor fellows zigzagged the
deserts afoot, beginning in northeastern Kansas
and coming out far down in Mexico.

Sebastian died soon after his arrival in the Mexi-

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here Fzsr ?-
the hcjsszLt tst^szss Lest
him 33 a fsmer. ' .\t
to another nomad :r±e. -yrfrr "hge aeesned
need of his pipaencg. It -ws a. ian^ennis ?
not only rm^rr the '^lAiiuw ! ^ rw ww**^ him
onsAjy but there was eqnai rT?=k in leaying^ hi
flock. The soperstitioiis InrHans wcxe Loar
the presence of soch a great medidne-ma
believed the Fray to be, and still more loa
such a benefit tranrferred to thdr enonie
these roving tribes were at war with c-
Nevcrtheless, Fray Padilla detomined
•et out with his fitde rednne. One c
from the villages of the Quivira^ diey rr
Indians out on the war-path. Seeing :
of the savagesy the good Father thougr
companions. Andr^ still had his h
hoys were fleet nmners.

*' Flee, my children ! " cried Fray F
yourselves, for roe ye cannot help, a:
all die together? Run!"

They at first refused, but the miss:
and as they were helpless against tl
flimlly obeyed and fled. This may n
iHiinght, the most heroic thuig it
■t.Hnlin)^ of ihctr time exom^fUi^
Wifiv thrv humble men oi^<*

iyi\liiii> W4i Ic

joogle

"S

)CKL

c heroisms and

>ur domain clus-

oma, the strange

All the Pueblo

h Nature herself

' times, since they

ng hordes of the

t Acoma was most

a long valley, four

lost insurmountable

, whose top is about

t' walls, three hundred

•)t merely perpendicu-

/erhanging. Upon its

to-day — the dizzy city

s to the top — whereon

to horrible death, hun-

y wild, precipitous clefts,

(ietermined man, with no

, could almost hold at bay

' ed Kiy-ress.

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.1

1^4 ^^^ SPANISH PIONEERS.

can State of Culiacan; the hardships of the trip
had been too much for even his strong young body.
His brother Lucas became a missionary among the
Indians of Zacatecas, Mexico, and carried on his
work among them for many years, dying at last in a
ripe old age. As for the brave soldier Docampo,
soon after his return to civilization he disappeared
from view. Perhaps old Spanish documents may
yet be discovered which will throw some light on his
subsequent life and his iaXt.

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THE WAR OP THE ROCK, 115

III.

THE WAR OF THE ROCK.

SOME of the most characteristic heroisms and
hardships of the Pioneers in our domain clus-
ter about the wondrous rock of Acoma, the strange
sky-city of the Quires* Pueblos. All the Pueblo
cities were built in positions which Nature herself
had fortified, — a necessity of the times, since they
were surrounded by outnumbering hordes of the
deadliest warriors in history; but Acoma was most
secure of all. In the midst of a long valley, four
miles wide, itself lined by almost insurmountable
precipices, towers a lofty rock, whose top is about
seventy acres in area, and whose walls, three hundred
and fifty-seven feet high, are not merely perpendicu-
lar, but in most places even overhanging. Upon its
summit was perched — and is to-day — the dizzy city
of the Quires. The few paths to the top — whereon
a misstep will roll the victim to horrible death, hun-
dreds of feet below — are by wild, precipitous clefts,
at the head of which one determined man, with no
other weapons than stones, could almost hold at bay
an army.

^ Pronounced Kay-ress.

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126 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

This Strange aerial town was first heard of by
Europeans in 1539, when Fray Marcos, the dis-
coverer of New Mexico, was told by the people of
Cibola of the great rock fortress of Hikuque, —
their name for Acoma, which the natives them-
selves called Ah'ko. In the following year Coro-
nado visited it with his little army, and has left us
an accurate account of its wonders. These first
Europeans were well received there ; and the su-
perstitious natives, who had never seen a beard
or a white face before, took the strangers for gods.
But it was more than half a century later yet before
the Spaniards sought a foothold there.

When Oiiate entered New Mexico in 1598, he
met no immediate resistance whatever ; for his force
of four hundred people, including two hundred men-
at-arms, was large enough to awe the Indians. They
were naturally hostile to these invaders of their
domain ; but finding themselves well treated by the
strangers, and fearful of open war against these men
with hard clothes, who killed from afar with their
thunder-sticks, the Pueblos awaited results. The
Quires, Tigua, and Jemez branches formally submit-
ted to Spanish rule, and took the oath of allegiance
to the Crown by their representative men gathered
at the pueblo of Guipuy (now Santo Domingo) ; as
also did the Tanos, Picuries, Tehuas, and Taos^ at
a similar conference at the pueblo of San Juan, in
September, 1598. At this ready submission Oiiate
was greatly encouraged; and he decided to visit
all the principal pueblos in person, to make them

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THE WAR OP THE ROCK, 12 J

securer subjects of his sovereign. He had founded
ah-eady the first town in New Mexico and the
second in the United States, — San Gabriel de los
Espanoles, where Chamita stands to-day. Before
starting on this perilous journey, he despatched
Juan de Zaldivar, his maestro de catnpo^ with fifty
men to explore the vast, unknown plains to the
east, and then to follow him.

Ofiate and a small force left the lonely little
Spanish colony, — more than a thousand miles from
any other town of civilized men, — October 6,
1598. First he marched to the pueblos in the
great plains of the Salt Lakes, east of the Man-
zano mountains, — a thirsty journey of more than
two hundred miles. Then returning to the pueblo
of Puaray (opposite the present Bernalillo), he
turned westward. On the 27th of the same month
he camped at the foot of the lofty cliffs of Acoma.
The principalis (chief men) of the town came
down from the rock, and took the solemn pledge
of allegiance to the Spanish Crown. They were
thoroughly warned of the deep importance and
meaning of this step, and that if they violated
their oath they would be regarded and treated as
rebels against his Majesty; but they fully pledged
themselves to be faithful vassals. They were very
friendly, and repeatedly invited the Spanish com-
mander and his men to visit their sky-city. In
truth, they had had spies at the conferences in
Santo Domingo and San Juan, and had decided

1 Commander in the field : equivalent to our colonel.

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128 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

that the most dangerous man among the invaders
was Oiiate himself. If he could be slain, they
thought the rest of the pale strangers might be
easily routed.

But Oiiate knew nothing of their intended treach-
ery ; and on the following day he and his handfid
of men — leaving only a guard with the horses —
climbed one of the breathless stone " ladders," and
stood in Acoma. The officious Indians piloted them
hither and yon, showing them the strange terraced
houses of many stories in height, the great reservoirs
in the eternal rock, and the dizzy brink which every-
where surrounded the eyrie of a town. At last they
brought the Spaniards to where a huge ladder, pro-
jecting far aloft through a trapdoor in the roof of a
large house, indicated the estufa^ or sacred council-
chamber. The visitors mounted to the roof by a
smaller ladder, and the Indians tried to have Oiiate
descend through the trapdoor. But the Spanish
governor, noting that all was dark in the room be-
low, and suddenly becoming suspicious, declined to
enter; and as his soldiers were all about, the In-
dians did not insist. After a short visit in the
pueblo the Spaniards descended the rock to their
camp, and thence marched away on their long
and dangerous journey to Moqui and Zuni. That
swift flash of prudence in Oiiate's mind saved the
history of New Mexico ; for in that dark esiufa was
lying a band of armed warriors. Had he entered
the room, he would have been slain at once ; and
his death was to be the signal for a general on-

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THE WAR OP THE ROCK. 129

slaught upon the Spaniards, all of whom must have
perished in the unequal fight.

Returning from his march of exploration through
the trackless and deadly plains, Juan de Zaldivar
left San Gabriel on the i8th of November, to follow
his commander-in-chief. He had but thirty men.
Reaching the foot of the City in the Sky on the 4th
of December, he was very kindly received by the
Acomas, who invited him up into their town. Juan
was a good soldier, as well as a gallant one, and
well used to the tricks of Indian warfare ; but for
the first time in his life — and the last — he now
let himself be deceived. Leaving half his little force
at the foot of the cliff to guard the camp and
horses, he himself went up with sixteen men. The
town was so full of wonders, the people so cordial,
that the visitors soon forgot whatever suspicions
they may have had ; and by degrees they scattered
hither and yon to see the strange sights. The
natives had been waiting only for this; and when
the war-chief gave the wild whoop, men, women,
and children seized rocks and clubs, bows and flint-
knives, and fell furiously upon the scattered Span-
iards. It was a ghastly and an unequal fight the
winter sun looked down upon that bitter afternoon in
the cliff city. Here and there, with back against the
wall of one of those strange houses, stood a gray-
faced, tattered, bleeding soldier, swinging his clumsy
flintlock club-like, or hacking with desperate but
unavailing sword at the dark, ravenous mob that
hemmed him, while stones rained upon his bent
9

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13© THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

visor, and clubs and cruel flints sought him from
every side. There was no coward blood among
that doomed band. They sold their lives dearly;
in front of every one lay a sprawling heap of dead.
But one by one the howling wave of barbarians
drowned each grim, silent fighter, and swept off to
swell the murderous flood about the next. Zal-
divar himself was one of the flrst victims ; and two
other officers, six soldiers, and two servants fell in
that uneven combat. The five survivors — Juan
Tabaro, who was a^uacil-mayor^ with four sold-
iers — got at last together, and with superhuman
strength fought their way to the edge of the cliff,
bleeding from many wounds. But their savage
foes still pressed them; and being too faint to
carve their way to one of the "ladders," in the
wildness of desperation the five sprang over the
beetling cliff.

Never but once was recorded so frightfril a leap
as that of Tabaro and his four companions. Even if
we presume that they had been so fortunate as to
reach the very lowest point of the rock, it could
not have been less than one hundred and fifty feet/
And yet only one of the five was killed by this in-
conceivable fall; the remaining four, cared for by
their terrified companions in the camp, all finally
recovered. It would be incredible, were it not es-
tablished by absolute historical proof. It is prob-
able that they fell upon one of the mounds of white
sand which the winds had drifted against the foot of
the cliffs in places.

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THE WAR OP THE ROCK, 131

Fortunately, the victorious savages did not attack
the little camp. The survivors still had their horses^
of which unknown brutes the Indians had a great
fear. For several days the fourteen soldiers and
their four half-dead companions camped under the
overhanging cliff, where they were safe from missiles
from above, hourly expecting an onslaught from the
savages. They felt sure that this massacre of their
comrades was but the prelude to a general uprising
of the twenty-five or thirty thousand Pueblos ; and
regardless of the danger to themselves, they decided
at last to break up into little bands, and separate, —
some to follow their commander on his lonely march
to Moqui, and warn him of his danger ; and others
to hasten over the hundreds of arid miles to San Ga-
briel and the defence of its women and babes, and
to the missionaries who had scattered among the
savages. This plan of self-devotion was successfully
carried out. The little bands of three and four
apiece bore the news to their countrymen ; and by
the end of the year 1598 all the surviving Spaniards
in New Mexico were safely gathered in the hamlet
of San Gabriel. The little town was built pueblo-
fashion, in the shape of a hollow square. In the
Plaza within were planted the rude pedreros — small
howitzers which fired a ball of stone — to command
the gates; and upon the roo£s of the three-story
adobe houses the brave women watched by day, and
the men with their heavy flintlocks all through the
winter nights, to guard against the expected at-
tack. But the Pueblos rested on their arms. They

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132 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

were waiting to see what Ofiate would do with
Acoma, before they took final measures against the
strangers.

It was a most serious dilemma in which OSate
now found himself. One need not have known half
so much about the Indian character as did this gray,
quiet Spaniard, to understand that he must signally
punish the rebels for the massacre of his men, or
abandon his colony and New Mexico altogether.
If such an outrage went unpunished, the emboldened
Pueblos would destroy the last Spaniard. On the
other hand, how could he hope to conquer that
impregnable fortress of rock? He had less than
two hundred men ; and only a small part of these
could be spared for the campaign, lest the other
Pueblos in their absence should rise and annihilate
San Gabriel and its people. In Acoma there were
full three hundred warriors, reinforced by at least
a hundred Navajo braves.

But there was no alternative. The more he re-
flected and counselled with his officers, the more
apparent it became that the only salvation was to
capture the Quires Gibraltar ; and the plan was de-
cided upon. Onate naturally desired to lead in per-
son this forlomest of forlorn hopes ; but there was
one who had even a better claim to the desperate
honor than the captain-general, — and that one
was the forgotten hero Vicente de Zaldivar, brother
of the murdered Juan. He was sargento-mayor^ of
the little army ; aftd when he came to Ofiate and
^ Equivalent to lieutenant-colonel.

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THE WAR OP THE ROCK, 133

begged to be given command of the expedition
against Acoma, there was no saying him nay.

On the 1 2th of January, 1599, Vicente de Zaldivar
left San Gabriel at the head of seventy men. Only
a few of them had even the clumsy flintlocks of the
day ; the majority were not arquebusiers hvXpiquierSf
armed only with swords and lances, and clad in
jackets of quilted cotton or battered mail. One
small pedrerOf lashed upon the back of a horse, was
the only " artillery."

Silently and sternly the little force made its ardu-
ous march. All knew that impregnable rock, and
few cherished an expectation of returning from so
desperate a mission; but there was no thought of
turning back. On the afternoon of the eleventh day
the tired soldiers passed the last intervening mesa^^
and came in sight of Acoma. The Indians, warned
by their runners, were ready to receive them. The
whole population, with the Navajo allies, were under
arms, on the housetops and the commanding cliffs.
Naked savages, painted black, leaped from crag to
crag, screeching defiance and heaping insults upon
the Spaniards. The medicine-men, hideously dis-
guised, stood on projecting pinnacles, beating their
drums and scattering curses and incantations to the
winds ; and all the populace joined in derisive howls
and taunts.

Zaldivar halted his little band as close to the foot
of the cliff as he could come without danger. The
indispensable notary stepped froip the ranks, and at
1 Huge "Uble" of rock.

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134 ^-«fi SPANISH PIONEERS.

the blast of the trumpet proceeded to read at the
top of his lungs the formal summons in the name of
the king of Spain to surrender. Thrice he shouted
through the summons ; but each time his voice was
drowned by the howls and shrieks of the enraged
savages^ and a hail of stones and arrows fell danger-
ously near. Zaldivar had desired to secure the sur-
render of the pueblo, demand the delivery to him of
the ringleaders in the massacre, and take them back
with him to San Gabriel for official trial and punish-
ment, without harm to the other people of Acoma ;
but the savages, secure in their grim fortress, mocked
the merciful appeal. It was clear that Acoma must
be stormed. The Spaniards camped on the bare
sands and passed the night — made hideous by the
sounds of a monster war-dance in the town — in
gloomy plans for the morrow.

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THE STORMING OF THE SKY-CITY. 135

IV.

THE STORMING OF THE SKY-CITY.

AT daybreak^ on the morning of January 22,
Zaldivar gave the signal for the attack ; and
the main body of the Spaniards began firing their
few arquebuses, and making a desperate assault at
the north end of the great rock, there absolutely
impregnable. The Indians, crowded along the cliffs
above, poured down a rain of missiles ; and many
of the Spaniards were wounded. Meanwhile twelve
picked men, ^o had hidden during the night
under the overhanging cliff which protected them
alike from the fire and the observation of the
Indians, were crawling stealthily around under the
precipice, dragging the pedrero by ropes. Most of
these twelve were arquebusiers ; and besides the
weight of the ridiculous little cannon, they had their
ponderous flint-locks and their clumsy armor, —
poor helps, for scaling heights which the unencum-
bered athlete finds difficult. Pursuing their toilsome
way unobserved, pulling one another and then the
pedrero up the ledges, they reached at last the top
of a great outlying pinnacle of rock, separated from
the main cliff of Acoma by a narrow but awful
chasm. Late in the afternoon they had their how-

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136 THE SPANISH PIONRBRS.

itzer trained upon the town ; and the loud report,
as its cobble-stone ball flew into Acoma, signalled
the main body at the north end of the mesa that
the first vantage-ground had been safely gained, and
at the same time warned the savages of danger from
a new quarter.

That night little squads of Spaniards climbed the
great precipices which wall the trough-like valley on
east and west, cut down small pines, and with infi-
nite labor dragged the logs down the cliffs, across
the valley, and up the butte on which the twelve
were stationed. About a score of men were left to
guard the horses at the north end of the mesa ; and
the rest of the force joined the twelve, hiding behind
the crags of their rock-tower. Across the chasm
the Indians were lying in crevices, or behind rocks,
awaiting the attack.

At daybreak of the 23d, a squad of picked men
at a given signal rushed from their hiding-places
with a log on their shoulders, and by a lucky cast
lodged its farther end on the opposite brink of the
abyss. Out dashed the Spaniards at their heels, and
began balancing across that dizzy '' bridge " in the
face of a volley of stones and arrows. A very few
had crossed, when one in his excitement caught the
rope and pulled the log across after him.

It was a fearful moment. There were less than
a dozen Spaniards thus left standing alone on the
brink of Acoma, cut off from their companions by
a gulf hundreds of feet deep, and surrounded by
swarming savages. The Indians, sallying from their

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THE STORMING OF THE SKY-CITY. 137

refuge, fell instantly upon them on every hand. As
long as the Spanish soldier could keep the Indians
at a distance, even his clumsy firearms and ineffi-
cient armor gave an advantage ; but at such close
quarters these very things were a fatal impediment
by their weight and clumsiness. Now it seemed as if
the previous Acoma massacre were to be repeated,
and the cut-off Spaniards to be hacked to pieces ;
but at this very crisis a deed of surpassing personal
valor saved them and the cause of Spain in New
Mexico. A slender, bright-faced young officer, a
college boy who was a special friend and favorite of
Onate, sprang from the crowd of dismayed Spaniards
on the farther bank, who dared not fire into that in-
discriminate jostle of friend and foe, and came run-
ning like a deer toward the chasm. As he reached
its brink his lithe body gathered itself, sprang into
the air like a bird, and cleared the gulf ! Seizing the
log, he thrust it back with desperate strength until
his companions could grasp it from the farther
brink; and over the restored bridge the Spanish
soldiers poured to retrieve the day.

Then began one of the most fearful hand-to-hand
struggles in all American history. Outnumbered
nearly ten to one, lost in a howling mob of savages
who fought with the frenzy of despair, gashed with
raw-edged knives, dazed with crushing clubs, pierced
with bristling arrows, spent and faint and bleeding,
Zaldivar and his hero-handful fought their way inch
by inch, step by step, clubbing their heavy guns,
hewing with their short swords, parrying deadly

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138 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

blows, pulling the barbed arrows from their quiver-
ing flesh. On, on, on they pressed, shouting the
gallant war-cry of Santiago, driving the stubborn foe
before them by still more stubborn valor, until at
last the Indians, fully convinced that these were
no human foes, fled to the refuge of their fort-like
houses, and there was room for the reeling Span-
iards to draw breath. Then thrice again the sum-
mons to surrender was duly read before the strange
tenements, each near a thousand feet long, and
looking like a flight of gigantic steps carved from
one rock. Zaldivar even now wished to spare un-
necessary bloodshed, and demanded only that the
assassins of his brother and countr3anen should be
given up for punishment. All others who should
surrender and become subjects of "Our Lord the
ICing" should be well treated. But the dogged
Indians, like wounded wolves in their den, stuck in
their barricaded houses, and refused all terms of
peace.

The rock was captured, but the town remained.
A pueblo is a fortress in itself; and now Zaldivar
had to storm Acoma house by house, room by room.
The little pedrero was dragged in front of the first
row of houses, and soon began to deliver its slow
fire. As the adobe walls crumbled under the steady
battering of the stone cannon-balls, they only formed
great barricades of clay, which even our modem
artillery would not pierce ; and each had to be car-
ried separately at the point of the sword. Some
of the &llen houses caught fire from their own

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§

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P<
ID

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o

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THE STORMING OF THE SKY-CITY, 139

fogones ; ^ and soon a stifling smoke hung over the
town, from which issued the shrieks of women and
babes and the defiant yells of the warriors. The
humane Zaldivar made every effort to save the
women and children, at great risk of self; but
numbers perished beneath the falling walls of their
own houses.

This fearful storming lasted until noon of Jan-
uary 24. Now and then bands of warriors made
sorties, and tried to cut their way through the Span-
ish line. Many sprang in desperation over the cliff,
and were dashed to pieces at its foot ; and two In-
dians who made that incredible leap survived it as
miraculously as had the four Spaniards in the earlier
massacre, and made their escape.

At last, at noon of the third day, the old men
came forth to sue for mercy, which was at once
granted. The moment they surrendered, their re-
bellion was forgotten and their treachery forgiven.
There was no need of further punishment. The
ringleaders in the murder of Zaldivar's brother were
all dead, and so were nearly all the Navajo allies. It
was the most bloody struggle New Mexico ever saw.
In this three days* fight the Indians lost five hun-
dred slain and many wounded ; and of the surviving
Spaniards not one but bore to his grave many a
ghastly scar as mementos of Acoma. The town
was so nearly destroyed that it had all to be rebuilt ;
and the infinite labor with which the patient people
had brought up that cliff on their backs all the stones
1 Fireplaces.

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140 THB SPANISH PIONBBRS,

and timber and clay to build a many-storied town
for nearly a thousand souls was all to be repeated.
Their crops, too, and all other supplies, stored in
dark little rooms of the terraced houses, had been
destroyed, and they were in sore want. Truly a
bitter punishment had been sent them by " those
above " for their treachery to Juan de Zaldivar.

When his men had sufficiently recovered from their
wounds Vicente de Zaldivar, the leader of probably
the most \yonderful capture in history, marched vic-
torious back to San Gabriel de los Espanoles, taking
with him eighty young Acoma girls, whom he sent
to be educated by the nuns in Old Mexico. What a
shout must have gone up from the gray walls of the
little colony when its anxious watchers saw at last
the wan and unexpected tatters of its little army
pricking slowly homeward across the snows on jaded
steeds !

The rest of the Pueblos, who had been lying de-
mure as cats, with claws sheathed, but every lithe
muscle ready to spring, were^ fairly paralyzed with
awe. They had looked to see the Spaniards de-
feated, if not crushed, at Acoma ; and then a swift
rising of all the tribes would have made short work
of the remaining invaders. But now the impossible
had happened ! Ah'ko, the proud sky-city of the
Queres ; Ah'ko, the cliiF-girt and impregnable, —
had fallen before the pale strangers ! Its brave
warriors had come to naught, its strong houses were
a chaos of smoking ruins, its wealth was gone, its
people nearly wiped from o£f the earth ! What use

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THE STORMING OP THE SICY-CITY, 141

to Straggle against " such men of power," — these
strange wizards who must be precious to <' those
above/' else they never could have such superhuman
prowess? The Strang sinews relaxed, and the great
cat began to purr as though she had never dreamt
of mousing. There was no more thought of a re-
bellion against the Spaniards ; and the Indians even
went out of their way to court the favor of these
awesome strangers. They brought Onate the news
of the fall of Acoma several days before Zaldivar
and his heroes got back to the little colony, and
even were mean enough to deliver to him two Queres
refugees from that dread field who had sought shel-
ter among them. Thenceforth Governor Oilate had
no more trouble with the Pueblos.

But Acoma itself seemed to take the lesson to
heart less than any of them. Too crashed and
broken to think of further war with its invincible
foes, it still remained bitterly hostile to the Span-
iards for full thirty years, until it was again con-
quered by a heroism as splendid as Zaldivar's,
though in a far different way.

In 1629 Fray Juan Ramirez, "the Apostle of
Acoma," left Santa F^ alone to found a mission in
that lofty home of fierce barbarians. An escort of
soldiers was offered him, but he dechned it, and
started unaccompanied and on foot, with no other
weapon than his cracifix. Tramping his foot-
sore and dangerous way, he came after many days
to the foot of the great " island ** of rock, and began
the ascent. As soon as the savages saw a stranger

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142 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

of the hated people, they ralKed to the brink of the
cliff and poured down a great flight of arrows, some
of which pierced his robes. Just then a little girl
of Acoma, who was standing on the edge of the
cliff, grew frightened at the wild actions of her
people, and losing her balance tumbled over the
precipice. By a strange providence she fell but a
few yards, and landed on a sandy ledge near the
Fray, but out of sight of her people, who presumed
that she had fallen the whole height of the cliff.
Fray Juan climbed to her, and carried her unhurt to
the top of the rock ; and seeing this apparent mira-
cle, the savages were disarmed, and received him as
a good wizard. The good man dwelt alone there
in Acoma for more than twenty years, loved by the
natives as a father, and teaching his swarthy con-
verts so successfully that in time many knew their
catechism, and could read and write in Spanish.
Besides, under his direction they built a large
church with enormous labor. When he died, in
1664, the Acomas from being the fiercest Indians
had become the gentlest in New Mexico, and were
among the furthest advanced in civilization. But a
few years after his death came the uprising of all
the Pueblos ; and in the long and disastrous wars
which followed the church was destroyed, and
the fruits of the brave Fray's work largely disap-
peared. In that rebellion Fray Lucas Maldonado,
who was then the missionary to Acoma, was butch-
ered by his flock on the loth or nth of August,
1680. In November, 1692, Acoma voluntarily sur-

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THE STORMING OP THE SKY-CITY, 143

rendered to the reconqueror of New Mexico, Diego
de Vargas. Within a few years, however, it rebelled
again; and in August, 1696, Vaigas marched against
it, but was unable to storm the rock. But by de-
grees the Pueblos grew to lasting peace with the
humane conquerors, and to merit the kindness
which was steadily proffered them. The mis-
sion at Acoma was re-established about the year
1700 ; and there stands to-day a huge church which
is one of the most interesting in the world, by rea-
son of the infinite labor and patience which built it.
The last attempt at a Pueblo uprising was in 1728 ;
but Acoma was not implicated in it at all.

The strange stone stairway by which Fray Juan
Ramirez climbed first to his dangerous parish in the
teeth of a storm of arrows, is used by the people of
Acoma to this day, and is still called by them el
camino del padre (the path of the Father).

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144 TUB SPANISH PIONEERS.

THE SOLDIER POET.

BUT now to go back a little. The young officer
who made that superb ledp across the chasm
at Acoma, pushed back the bridge-log, and so saved
the lives of his comrades, and indirectly of all the
Spanish in New Mexico, was Captain Caspar Perez
de Villagran.^ He was highly educated, being a
graduate of a Spanish university ; young, ambitious,
fearless, and athletic ; a hero among the heroes of
the New World, and a chronicler to whom we are
greatly indebted. The six extant copies of the fat
little parchment-bound book of his historical poem,
in thirty-four heroic cantos, are each worth many
times their weight in gold. It is a great pity that
we could not have had a Villagran for each of the
campaigns of the pioneers of America, to tell us
more of the details of those superhuman dangers
and hardships, — for most of the chroniclers of that
day treat such episodes as briefly as we would a trip
from New York to Brooklyn.

The leaping of the chasm was not Captain Villa-
gran's only connection with the bloody doings at
Acoma in the winter of 1598-99. He came very
^ Pronounced Veel-yah-grdhn.

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THB SOLDIHR PORT,

I4S

near being a victim of the first massacre, in which
Juan de Zaldivar and his men perished, and escaped
that fate only to suffer hardships as fearful as death.
In the fall of 1598 four soldiers deserted Oiiate's
little army at San Gabriel ; and the governor sent
Villagran, with three or four soldiers, to arrest them.
It is hard to say what a sheriff nowadays would think
if called upon to follow four desperadoes nearly a
thousand miles across such a desert, and with a
posse so small. But Captain Villagran kept the
trail of the deserters ; and after a pursuit of at least
nine hundred miles, overtook them in southern
Chihuahua, Mexico. The deserters made a fierce
resistance. Two were killed by the officers, and two
escaped. Villagran left his little posse there, and
retraced his dangerous nine hundred miles alone.
Arriving at the pueblo of Puaray, on the west bank
of the Rio Grande, opposite Bernalillo, he learned
that his commander Onate had just marched west,
on the perilous trip to Moqui, of which you have
already heard. Villagran at once turned westward,
and started alone to follow and overtake his country-
men. The trail was easily followed, for the Spaniards
had the only horses within what is now the United
States ; but the lonely follower of it was beset with
coiitinual danger and hardship. He came in sight
of Acoma just too late to witness the massacre of
Juan de Zaldivar and the fearful fall of the five
Spaniards. The survivors had already left the fatal
spot ; and when the natives saw a solitary Spaniard
approaching, they descended from their rock citadel

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146 TUB SPANISH PIONEERS.

to surround and slay him. Villagran had no fire-
arms, nothing but his sword, dagger, and shield.
Although he knew nothing of the dreadful events
which had just occurred, he became suspicious of
the manner in which the savages were hemming
him in ; and though his horse was gaunt from its
long journey, he spurred it to a gallant e£fort,
and fought his way through the closing circle of
Indians. He kept up his flight until well into the
night, making a long circuit to avoid coming too near
the town, and at last got down exhausted from his
exhausted horse, and laid himself on the bare earth
to rest. When he awoke it was snowing hard, and
he was half buried under the cold, white blanket.
Remounting, he pushed on in the darkness, to get
as far as possible from Acoma ere daylight should
betray him. Suddenly horse and rider fell into a
deep pit, which the Indians had dug for a trap
and covered with brush and earth. The fall killed
the poor horse, and Villagran himself was badly hurt
and stunned. At last, however, he managed to crawl
out of the pit, to the great joy of his faithful dog,
who sat whining and shivering upon the edge. The
soldier-poet speaks most touchingly of this dumb
companion of his long and perilous journey, and
evidently loved it with the affection which only a
brave man can give and a faithful dog merit.

Starting again on foot, Villagran soon lost his
way in that trackless wilderness. For four days and
four nights he wandered without a morsel of food
or a drop of water, — for the snow had already dis-

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THE SOLDIER POET. 147

appeared. Many a man has fasted longer under
equal hardships; but only those who have tasted
the thirst of the arid lands can form the remotest
conception of the meaning of ninety-six hours with-
out water. Two days of that thirst is often fatal to
strong men; and that Villagran endured four was
little short of miraculous. At last, fairly dying of
thirsty with dry, swollen tongue, hard and rough as a
file, projecting far beyond his teeth, he was reduced
to the sad necessity of slaying his faithful dog, which
he did with tears of manly remorse. Calling the
poor brute to him, he dispatched it with his sword,
and greedily drank the warm blood. This gave him
strength to stagger on a little farther; and just as
he was sinking to the sand to die, he spied a little
hollow in a large rock ahead. Crawling feebly to
it, he found to his joy that a little snow-water
remained in the cavity. Scattered about, were a
few grains of com, which seemed a godsend ; and
he devoured them ravenously.

He had now given up all hope of overtaking his
commander, and decided to turn back and try to
walk that grim two hundred miles to San Gabriel.
But he was too far gone for the body longer to obey
the heroic soul, and would have perished miserably
by the little rock tank but for a strange chance.

As he lay there, faint and helpless, he suddenly
heard voices approaching. He concluded that the
Indians had trailed him, and gave himself up for
lost, for he was too weak to fight. But at last his
ear caught the accent of Spain ; and though it was

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.148 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

spoken by hoarse, rough soldiers, you may be sure
he thought it the sweetest sound in all the world.
It chanced that the night before, some of the horses
of Oiiate's camp had strayed away, and a small squad
of soldiers was sent out to catch them. In following
the trail of the runaways, they came in sight of Cap-
tain Villagran. Luckily they saw him, for he could
no longer shout nor run after them. Tenderly they
lifted up the wounded officer and bore him back to
camp ; and there, under the gentle nursing of bearded
men, he slowly recovered strength,' and in time be-
came again the daring athlete of other days. He
accompanied Ofiate on that long, desert march ; and
a few months later was at the storming of Acoma,
and performed the astounding feat which ranks as
one of the remarkable individual heroisms of the
New World.

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THE PIONEER MISSIONARIES. 149

VI.

THE PIONEER MISSIONARIES.

TO pretend to tell the story of the Spanish pio-
neering of the Americas without special atten-
tion to the missionary pioneers, would be very poor
justice and very poor history. In this, even more
than in other qualities, the conquest was unique.
The Spaniard not only found and conquered, hvX
converted. His religious earnestness was not a
whit behind his bravery. As has been true of all
nations that have entered new lands, — and as we
ourselves later entered this, — his first step had to
be to subdue the savages who opposed him. But
as soon as he had whipped these fierce grown-
children, he began to treat them with a great and
noble mercy, — a mercy none too common even now,
and in that cruel time of the whole world almost
unheard of. He never robbed the brown first
Americans of their homes, nor drove them on and
on before him ; on the contrary, he protected and
secured to them by special laws the undisturbed
possession of their lands for all time. It is due to
the generous and manly laws made by Spain three
hundred years ago, that our most interesting and
advanced Indians, the Pueblos, enjoy to-day full

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tSO THE SPANISH PIONEBHS.

security in their lands ; while nearly all others (who
never came fully under Spanish dominion) have
been time after time ousted from lands our govern-
ment had solemnly given to them.

That was the beauty of an Indian policy which
was ruled, not by politics, but by the unvarying prin-
ciple of humanity. The Indian was first required
to be obedient to his new government. He could
not learn obedience in everything all at once ; but
he must at least refrain from butchering his new
neighbors. As soon as he learned that lesson, he
was insured protection in his rights of home and
family and property. Then, as rapidly as such a
vast work could be done by an army of missionaries
who devoted their lives to the dangerous task, he
was educated to citizenship and Christianity. It is
almost impossible for us, in these quiet days, to
comprehend what it was to convert a savage half-
world. In our part of North America there have
never been such hopeless tribes as the Spaniards
met in Mexico and other southern lands. Never
did any other people anywhere complete such a
stupendous missionary work. To begin to under-
stand the difficulties of that conversion, we must
look into an appalling page of history.

Most Indians and savage peoples have religions as
unlike ours as are their social organizations. There
are few tribes that dream of one Supreme Being.
Most of them worship many gods, — " gods " whose
attributes are very like those of the worshipper;
'' gods " as ignorant and cruel and treacherous as he.

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THE PIONEER MISSIONARIES. 15 1

It is a ghastly thing to study these religions, and to
see what dark and revolting qualities ignorance can
deify. The merciless gods of India, who are sup-
posed to delight in the crushing of thousands under
the wheels of Juggernaut, and in the sacrificing of
babes to the Ganges, and in the burning alive of girl-
widows, are fair examples of what the benighted can
believe ; and the horrors of India were fully paralleled
in America. The religions of our North American
Indians had many astounding and dreadful features ;
but they were mild and civilized compared with the
hideous rites of Mexico and the southern lands. To
understand something of what the Spanish mission-
aries had to combat throughout America, aside from
the common danger, let us glance at the condition
of affairs in Mexico at their coming.

The Nahuad, or Aztecs, and similar Indian tribes
of ancient Mexico, had the general pagan creed of
all American Indians, with added horrors of their
own. They were in constant blind dread of their
innumerable savage gods, — for to them everything
they could not see and understand, and nearly every-
thing they could, was a divinity. But they could not
conceive of any such divinity as one they could love ;
it was always something to be afraid of, and mor-
tally afraid of. Their whole attitude of life was one
of dodging the cruel blows of an unseen hand ; of
placating some fierce god who could not love, but
might be bribed not to destroy. They could not
conceive a real creation, nor that anything could be
without father and mother: stones and stars and

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IS2 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

winds and gods had to be bom the same as men.
Their " heaven," if they could have understood such
a word, was crowded with gods, each as individual
and personal as we, with greater powers than we, but
with much the same weaknesses and passions and
sins. In fact, they had invented and arranged gods by
their own savage standards, giving them the powers
they themselves most desired, but unable to attribute
virtues they could not understand. So, too, in judg-
ing what would please these gods, they went by what
would please themselves. To have bloody ven-
geance on their enemies ; to rob and slay, or be paid
tribute for not robbing and slaying; to be richly
dressed and well fed, — these, and other like things
which seemed to them the highest personal ambi-
tions, they thought must be likewise pleasing to
" those above." So they spent most of their time
and anxiety in buying off these strange gods, who
were even more dreaded than savage neighbors.

Their ideas of a god were graphically expressed
in the great stone idols of which Mexico was once
full, some of which are still preserved in the muse-
ums. They are often of heroic size, and are carved
from the hardest stone with great painstaking, but
their faces and figures are indescribably dreadful.
Such an idol as that of the grim Huitzilopochtli was
as horrible a thing as human ingenuity ever invented,
and the same grotesque hideousness runs through aU
the long list of Mexican idols.

These idols were attended with the most servile
care, and dressed in the richest ornaments known to

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THE PIONEER MISSIONARIES. 153

Indian wealth. Great strings of turquoise, — the
most precious " gem " of the American aborigines, —
and really precious mantles of the brilliant feathers
of tropic birds, and gorgeous shells were hung lav-
ishly upon those great stone nightmares. Thousands
of men devoted their lives to the tending of the
dumb deities, and humbled and tortured themselves
unspeakably to please them.

But gifts and care were not enough. Treacheiy
to his friends was still to be feared from such a god.
He must still further be bought off; everything that
to an Indian seemed valuable was proffered to the
Indian's god, to keep him in good humor. And
since human life was the most precious thing an
Indian could understand, it became his most im-
portant and finally his most frequent offering. To
the Indian it seemed no crime to take a life to
please a god. He had no idea of retribution after
death, and he came to look upon human sacrifice
as a legitimate, moral, and even divine institution.
In time, such sacrifices became of almost daily oc-
currence at each of the numberless temples. It was
the most valued form of worship ; so great was its
importance that the officials or priests had to go
through a more onerous training than does any min-
ister of a Christian faith. They could reach their
position only by pledging and keeping up unceasing
and awful self-deprivation and self- mutilation.

Human lives were offered not only to one or two
principal idols of each community, but each town
had also many minor fetiches to which such sacri-

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154 ^^-fi SPANISH PIONEERS.

fices were made on stated occasions. So fixed was
the custom of sacrifice, and so proper was it deemed,
that when Cortez came to Cempohudl the natives
could think of no other way to welcome him with
sufficient honor, and in perfect cordiality proposed
to offer up human sacrifices to him. It is hardly
necessary to add that Cortez sternly declined this
pledge of hospitality.

These rites were mostly performed on the teocallis,
or sacrificial mounds, of which there were one or
more in eveiy Indian town. These were huge arti-
ficial mounds of earth, built in the shape of trun-
cated pyramids, and faced all over with stone. They
were from fifty to two hundred feet high, and some-
times many hundreds of feet square at the base.
Upon the flat top of the pyramid stood a small
tower, — the dingy chapel which enclosed the idol.
The grotesque face of the stone deity looked down
upon a cylindrical stone which had a bowl-like cav-
ity in the top, — the altar, or sacrificial stone. This
was generally carved also, and sometimes with re-
markable skill and detail. The famotis so-called
''Aztec Calendar Stone" in the National Museum
of Mexico, which once gave rise to so many wild
speculations, is merely one of these sacrificial altars,
dating from before Columbus. It is a wonderful
piece of Indian stone-carving.

The idol, the inner walls of the temple, the floor,
the altar, were always wet with the most precious
fluid on earth. In the bowl human hearts smoul-
dered. Black-robed wizards, their faces painted

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THE PIONEER MISSIONARIES, 155

black with white rings about eyes and mouth, theii
hair matted with blood, their faces raw from con*
stant self-torture, forever flitted to and fro, keeping
watch by night and day, ready always for the vic-
tims whom that dreadful superstition was always
ready to bring. The supply of victims was drawn
from prisoners taken in war, and from slaves paid
as tribute by conquered tribes ; and it took a vast
supply. Sometimes as many as five hundred were
sacrificed on one altar on one great day. . They
were stretched naked upon the sacrificial stone, and
butchered in a manner too horrible to be described
here. Their palpitating hearts were offered to the
idol, and then thrown into the great stone bowl ; while
the bodies were kicked down the long stone stair-
way to the bottom of the great mound, where they
were seized upon by the eager crowd. The Mexi-
cans were not cannibals regularly and as a matter
of taste ; but they devoured these bodies as part of
their grim religion.

It is too revolting to go more into detail concern-
ing these rites. Enough has been said to give some
idea of the moral barrier encountered by the Span-
ish missionaries when they came to such blood-
thirsty savages with a gospel which teaches love and
the universal brotherhood of man. Such a creed
was as unintelligible to the Indian as white black-
ness would be to us ; and the struggle to make him
understand was one of the most enormous and ap-
parently hopeless ever undertaken by human teach*
ers. Before the missionaries could make these

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156 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

savages even listen to — much less undeistand —
Christianity, they had the dangerous task of prov-
ing this paganism worthless. The Indian believed
absolutely in the power of his goiy stone-god. If
he should neglect his idol, he felt sure the idol
would punish and destroy him ; and of course he
would not believe anything that could be told him
to the contrary. The missionary had not only to say,
"Your idol is worthless; he cannot hurt anybody;
he is only a stone, and if you kick him he cannot
punish you," but he had to prove it. No Indian was
going to be so foolhardy as to try the experiment,
and the new teacher had to do it in person. Of course
he could not even do that at first ; for if he had
begun his missionary work by offering any indignity
to one of those ugly gods of porphyry, its "priests"
would have slain him on the spot. But when the
Indians saw at last that the missionary was not
struck down by some supernatural power for speak^
ing against their gods, there was one step gained.
By degrees he could touch the idol, and they saw
that he was still unharmed. At last he overturned
and broke the cruel images ; and the breathless and
terrified worshippers began to distrust and despise
the cowardly divinities they had played the slave to,
but whom a stranger could insult and abuse with
impunity. It was only by this rude logic, which the
debased savages could understand, that the Span-
ish missionaries proved to the Indians that human
sacrifice was a human mistake and not the will of
" Those Above." It was a wonderful achievement,

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THE PIONEER MISSIONARIES, 157

just the uprooting of this one, but worst, custom of
the Indian religion, — a custom strengthened by cen-
turies of constant practice. But the Spanish apostles
were equal to the task ; and the infinite faith and
zeal and patience which finally abolished human sac-
rifice in Mexico, led gradually on, step by step, to
the final conversion of a continent and a half of
savages to Christianity.

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158 THB SPANISH PIONEERS.

VII.

THE CHURCH-BUILDERS IN NEW
MEXICO.

'nPHD give even a skeleton of Spanish missionary
X work in the two Americas would fill several
volumes. The most that can be done here is to
take a sample leaf from that fascinating but formid-
able record ; and for that I shall outline something
of what was done in an area particularly interesting
to us, — the single province of New Mexico. There
were many fields which presented even greater
obstacles, and cost more lives of uncomplaining
martyrs and more generations of discouraging toil ;
but it is safe to take a modest example, as well as
one which so much concerns our own national
history.

New Mexico and Arizona — the real wonderland
of the United States — were discovered in 15399 as
you know, by that Spanish missionary whom every
young American should remember with honor, —
Fray Marcos, of Nizza. You have had glimpses,
too, of the achievements of Fray Ramirez, Fray
Padilla, and other missionaries in that forbidding
land, and have gained some idea of the hardships
which were common to all their brethren ; for the

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THE CHURCH-BUILDBRS. 159

wonderful journeys, the lonely self-sacrifice, the
gentle zeal, and too often the cruel deaths of these
men were not exceptions, but fair types of what
the apostle to the Southwest must expect.

There have been missionaries elsewhere whose
flocks were as long ungrateful and murderous, but
few if any who were more out of the world. New
Mexico has been for three hundred and fifty years,
and is to-day, largely a wilderness, threaded with a
few slender oases. To people of the Eastern States
a desert seems very far off; but there are hundreds
of thousands of square miles in our own Southwest
to this day where the traveller is very likely to die of
thirst, and where poor wretches every year do perish
by that most awful of deaths. Even now there is
no trouble in finding hardship and danger in New
Mexico ; and once it was one of the cruellest wil-
dernesses conceivable. Scarce a decade has gone
by since an end was put to the Indian wars and
harassments, which had lasted continuously for
more than three centuries. When Spanish colonist
or Spanish missionary turned his back on Old Mex-
ico to traverse the thousand-mile, roadless desert to
New Mexico, he took his life in his hands; and
every day in that savage province he was in equal
danger. If he escaped death by thirst or starvation
by the way, if the party was not wiped out by the
merciless Apache, then he settled in the wilderness
as far from any other home of white men as Chicago
is from Boston. If a missionary, he was generally
alone with a flock of hundreds of cruel savages;

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l6o THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

if a soldier or a farmer, he had from two hundred
to fifteen hundred friends in an area as big as New
England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio com-
bined, in the very midst of a hundred thousand
swarthy foes whose war-whoop he was likely to hear
at any moment, and never had long chance to for-
get. He came poor, and that niggard land never
made him rich. Even in the beginning of this
century, when some began to have large flocks
of sheep, they were often left penniless by one
night's raid of Apaches or Navajos.

Such was New Mexico when the missionaries
came, and very nearly such it remained for more
than three hundred years. If the most enlightened
and hopeful mind in the Old World could have
looked across to that arid land, it would never have
dreamed that soon the desert was to be dotted with
churches, — and not little log or mud chapels, but
massive stone masonries whose ruins stand to-day,
the noblest in our North America. But so it was ;
neither wilderness nor savage could balk that great
zeal.

The first church in what is now the United States
was founded in St. Augustine, Fla., by Fray Fran-
cisco de Pareja in 1560, — but there were many
Spanish churches in America a half century earlier
yet. The several priests whom Coronado brought
to New Mexico in 1540 did brave missionary
work, but were soon killed by the Indians. The
first church in New Mexico and the second in
the United States was founded in September,

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THE CHURCH'BUILDERS, i6l

1598, by the ten missionaries who accompanied
Juan de Oiiate, the colonizer. It was a small chapel
at San Gabriel de los Espanoles (now Chamita).
San Gabriel was deserted in 1605, when Onate
founded Santa F^, though it is probable that the
chapel was still occasionally used. In time, how-
ever, it fell into decay. As late as 1680 the ruins of
this honorable old church were still visible ; but now
they are quite indistinguishable. One of the first
things after establishing the new town of Santa F^
was of course to build a church, — and here, by
about 1606, was reared the third church in the
United States. It did not long meet the growing
requirements of the colony; and in 1622 Fray
Alonzo de Benavides, the historian, laid the founda-
tions of the parish church of Santa F^, which was
finished in 1627. The church of San Miguel in the
same old city was built after 1636. Its original
walls are still standing, and form part of a church
which is used to-day* It was partly destroyed in
the Pueblo rebellion of 1680, and was restored in
1 710. The new cathedral of Santa F^ is built
over the remnants of the still more ancient parish
church.

In 161 7 — three years before Plymouth Rock —
there were already eleven churches in use in New
Mexico. Santa F^ was the only Spanish town ; but
there were also churches at the dangerous Indian
pueblos of Galisteo and Pecos, two at Jemez
(nearly one hundred miles west of Santa F^, and
in an appalling wilderness), Taos (as far north).

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1 62 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

San Yldefonso, Santa Clara, Sandia, San Felipe, and
Santo Domingo. It was a wonderful achievement
for each lonely missionary — for they had neither
civil nor military assistance in their parishes — so
soon to have induced his barbarous flock to build
a big stone church, and worship there the new white
God. The churches in the two Jemez pueblos
had to be abandoned about 1622 on account of
incessant harassment by the Navajos, who from
time immemorial had ravaged that section, but
were occupied again in 1626. The Spaniards were
confined by the necessities of the desert, so far
as home-making went, to the valley of the Rio
Grande, which runs about north and south through
the middle of New Mexico. But their missionaries
were under no such limitation. Where the colonists
could not exist, they could pray and teach; and
very soon they began to penetrate the deserts which
stretch far on either side from that narrow ribbon of
colonizable land. At Zuni, far west of the river and
three hundred miles from Santa F^, the missionaries
had established themselves as early as 1629. Soon
they had six churches in six of the " Seven Cities of
Cibola" (the Zuiii towns), of which the one at
Chydnahue is still beautifully preserved; and in
the same period they had taken foothold two hun-
dred miles deeper yet in the desert, and built three
churches among the wondrous cliff-towns of Moqui,
Down the Rio Grande there was similar activity.
At the ancient pueblo of San Antonio de Senecti,
aow nearly obliterated, a church was founded in

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THE CHURCH-BUILDERS. 163

1629 by Fray Antonio de Arteaga; and the same
brave man, in the same year, founded another at the
pueblo of Nuestra Sefiora del Socorro, — now the
American town of Socorro. The church in the
pueblo of Picuries, far in the northern mountains,
was built before 1632, for in that year Fray Ascen-
cion de Z^ate was buried in it. The church at
Isleta, about in the centre of New Mexico, was built
before 1635. A few miles above Glorieta, one can
see from the windows of a train on the Santa F^
route a large and impressive adobe ruin, whose
fine walls dream away in that enchanted sunshine.
It is the old church of the pueblo of Pecos ; and
those walls were reared two hundred and seventy-
five years ago. The pueblo, once the largest in
New Mexico, was deserted in 1840; and its great
quadrangle of many-storied Indian houses is in utter
ruin ; but above their gray mounds still tower the
walls of the old church which was built before there
was a Saxon in New England. You see the ''mud
brick," as some contemptuously call the adobe, is
not such a contemptible thing, even for braving the
storms of centuries. There was a church at the
pueblo of Namb6 by 1642. In 1662 Fray Garcia
de San Francisco founded a church at El Paso del
Norte, on the present boundary-line between Mexico
and the United States, — a dangerous frontier mis-
sion, hundreds of miles alike from the Spanish
settlements in Old and New Mexico.

The missionaries also crossed the mountains east
of the Rio Grande, and established missions among

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164 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

the Pueblos who dwelt in the edge of the great
plains. Fray Geronimo de la Liana founded the
noble church at Cuaray about 1642 ; and soon after
came those at Ab6, Tenabo, and Tabir4 (better,
though incorrectly, known now as The Gran Qui-
vira). The churches at Cuaray, Ab6, and Tabir4
are the grandest ruins in the United States, and
much finer than many ruins which Americans go
abroad to see. The second and larger church at
Tabir4 was built between 1660 and 1670; and at
about the same time and in the same region —
though many thirsty miles away — the churches at
Tajique ^ and Chilili. Acoma, as you know, had a
permanent missionary by 1629; and he built a
church. Besides all these, the pueblos of Zia, Santa
Ana, Tesuque, Pojoaque, San Juan, San Marcos, San
Lazaro, San Cristobal, Alameda, Santa Cruz, and
Cochiti had each a church by 1680. That shows
something of the thoroughness of Spanish missionary
work. A century before our nation was bom, the
Spanish had built in one of our Territories half a hun-
dred permanent churches, nearly all of stone, and
nearly all for the express benefit of the Indians. That
is a missionary record which has never been equalled
elsewhere in the United States even to this day ; and
in all our country we had not built by that time so
many churches for ourselves.

A glimpse at the life of the missionary to New
Mexico in the days before there was an English-
speaking preacher in the whole western hemisphere
1 Pronounced Tah-^^ky.

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THE CHUBCH'BUILDERS. 165

is Strangely fascinating to all who love that lonely
heroism which does not need applause or compan-
ionship to keep it alive. To be brave in battle or
any similar excitement is a very easy thing. But to
be a hero alone and unseen, amid not only danger
but every hardship and discouragement, is quite
another matter.

The missionary to New Mexico had of course to
come first from Old Mexico, — or, before that, from
Spain. Some of these quiet, gray-robed men had
already seen such wanderings and such dangers as
even the Stanleys of nowadays do not know. They
had to furnish their own vestments and church furni-
ture, and to pay for their own transportation from
Mexico to New Mexico, — for very early a " line " of
semi-annual armed expeditions across the bitter
intervening wilderness was arranged. The fare
was JI266, which made serious havoc with the
good man's salary of |l 150 a year (at which figure
the salaries remained up to 1665, when they were
raised to <>330, payable every three years). It was
not much like a call to a fashionable pulpit in these
times. Out of this meagre pay — which was all the
synod itself could afford to give him — he had to
pay all the expenses of himself and his church.

Arriving, after a perilous trip, in perilous New
Mexico, — and the journey and the Territory were
still dangerous in the present generation, — the mis-
sionary proceeded first to Santa F^. His superior
there soon assigned him a parish ; and turning his
back on the one little colony of his countr3anen.

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l66 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

the fray trudged on foot fifty, one hundred, or three
hundred miles, as the case might be, to his new and
unknown post. Sometimes an escort of three or
four Spanish soldiers accompanied him ; but often he
made that toilsome and perilous walk alone. His
new parishioners received him sometimes with a
storm of arrows, and sometimes in sullen silence. He
could not speak to them, nor they to him ; and the
very first thing he had to do was to learn from such
unwilling teachers their strange tongue, — a language
much more difficult to acquire than Latin, Greek,
French, or German. Entirely alone among them,
he had to depend upon himself and upon the un-
tender mercies of his flock for life and all its neces-
sities. If they decided to kill him, there was no
possibility of resistance. If they refused him food,
he must starve. If he became sick or crippled, there
were no nurses or doctors for him except these
treacherous savages. I do not think there was ever
in history a picture of more absolute loneliness and
helplessness and hopelessness than the lives of these
unheard-of martyrs; and as for mere danger, no
man ever faced greater.

The provision made for the support of the mis-
sionaries was very simple. Besides the small salary
paid him by the synod, the pastor must receive some
help from his parish. This was a moral as well as
a material necessity. That interest partly depends
on personal giving, is a principle recognized in all
churches. So at once the Spanish laws commanded
from the Pueblos the same contribution to the

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THE CHURCH-BUILDERS, 167

church as Moses himself established. Each Indian
fomily was required to give the tithe and the first
fruits to the churchy just as they had always given
them to their pagan cacique. This was no burden to
the Indians, and it supported the priest in a very hum-
ble way. Of course the Indians did no/ give a tithe ;
at first they gave just as little as they could. The
"father's" food was their com, beans, and squashes,
with only a little meat rarely from their hunts, — for
it was a long time before there were fiocks of cattle
or sheep to draw from. He also depended on his
unreliable congregation for help in cultivating his
little plot of ground, for wood to keep him from
freezing in those high altitudes, and even for water,
— since there were no waterworks nor even wells,
and all water had to be brought considerable dis-
tances in jars. Dependent wholly upon such sus-
picious, jealous, treacherous helpers, the good man
often suffered greatly from hunger and cold. There
were no stores, of course, and if he could not get
food from the Indians he must starve. Wood was
in some cases twenty miles distant, as it is from
Isleta to-day. His labors also were not small. He
must not only convert these utter pagans to Chris-
tianity, but teach them to read and write, to farm
by better methods, and, in general, to give up their
barbarism for civilization.

How difScult it was to do this even the statesman
of to-day can hardly measure ; but what was the price
in blood is simple to be understood. It was not the
killing now and then of one of these noble men by

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l68 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

his ungrateful flock, — it was almost a habit. It
was not the sin of one or two towns. The pueblos
of Taos, Picuries, San Yldefonso, Namb^, Pojoaque,
Tesuque, Pecos, Galisteo, San Marcos, Santo Do-
mingo, Cochiti, San Felipe, Puaray, Jemez, Acoma,
Halona, Hauicu, Ahuatui, Mishongenivi, and Oraibe
— twenty different towns — at one time or another
murdered their respective missionaries. Some towns
repeated the crime several times. Up to the year
1 700, forty of these quiet heroes in gray had been
slain by the Indians in New Mexico, — two by the
Apaches, but all the rest by their own flocks. Of
these, one was poisoned ; the others died bloody and
awful deaths. Even in the last century several mis-
sionaries were killed by secret poison, — an evil art
in which the Indians were and are remarkably adept ;
and when the missionary had been killed, the Indians
burned the church.

One very important feature must not be lost sight
of. Not only did these Spanish teachers achieve a
missionary work unparalleled elsewhere by others,
but they made a wonderful mark on the world's
knowledge. Among them were some of the most
important historians America has had; and they
were among the foremost scholars in every intel-
lectual line, particularly in the study of languages.
They were not merely chroniclers, but students of
native antiquities, arts, and customs, — such histo-
rians, in fact, as are paralleled only by those great
classic writers, Herodotus and Strabo. In the long
and eminent list of Spanish missionary authors

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THE CHURCH-'BUILDERS. 169

were such men as Torquemada, Sahagun, Motolinia,
Mendieta, and many others; and their huge vol-
umes are among the greatest and most indispensa-
ble helps we have to a study of the real history
of America.

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lyo THE SPANISH PIONBBRS.

VIII.
ALVARADO'S LEAP.

IF the reader should ever go to the City of Mexico,
— as I hope he may, for that ancient town, which
was old and populous when Columbus was bom, is
alive with romantic interest, — he wiU have pointed
out to him, on the Rivera de San Cosme, the historic
spot still known as £1 Salto de Alvarado. It is now
a broad, civilized street, with horse-cars running,
with handsome buildings, with quaint, contented folk
sauntering to and fro, and with little outwardly to
recaU the terrors of that cruellest night in the history
of America, — the Noche Triste,

The leap of Alvarado is among the famous deeds
in history, and the leaper was a striking figure in
the pioneering of the New World. In the first great
conquest he bore himself gallantly, and the story
of his exploits then and thereafter would make a
fascinating romance. A tall, handsome man, with
yellow locks and ruddy face, young, impulsive, and
generous, a brilliant soldier and charming comrade,
he was a general favorite with Spaniard and Indian
alike. Though for some reason not fully liked by
Cortez, he was the conqueror's right-hand man, and
throughout the conquest of Mexico had generally

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ALVARADOPS LEAP. 171

the post of greatest danger. He was a college man,
and wrote a large, bold hand, — none too common
an accomplishment in those days, you will remem-
ber, — and signed a beautiful autograph. He was
not a great leader of men hke Cortez, — his valor
sometimes ran away with his prudence; but as
a field-officer he was as dashing and brilliant as
could be found.

Captain Pedro de Alvarado was a native of Seville,
and came to the New World in his young manhood,
soon winning some recognition in Cuba. In 15 18
he accompanied Grijalva in the voyage which dis-
covered Mexico, and carried back to Cuba the few
treasures they had collected. In the following year,
when Cortez sailed to the conquest of the new and
wonderful land, Alvarado accompanied him as his
lieutenant. In all the startling feats of that romantic
career he played a conspicuous part. In the crisis
when it became necessary to seize the treacherous
Moctezuma, Alvarado was active and prominent.
He had much to do with Moctezuma during the
latter's detention as a hostage; and his frankness
made him a great favorite with the captive war-
chief. He was left in command of the little gar-
rison at Mexico when Cortez marched off on his
audacious but successful expedition against Narvaez,
and discharged that responsible duty well. Before
Cortez got back, came the symptoms of an Indian
uprising, — the famous war-dance. Alvarado was
alone, and had to meet the crisis on his own respon-
sibility. But he was equal to the emergency. He

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1 71 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

understood the murderous meaning of this *' ghost-
dance/' as every Indian-fighter does, and the way
to meet it. In his unsuccessful attempt to capture
the wizards who were stirring up the populace
to massacre the strangers, Alvarado was severely
wounded. But he bore his part in the desperate
resistance to the Indian assaults, in which nearly
every Spaniard was wounded. In the great fighting
to hold their adobe stronghold, and the wild sorties
to force back the flood of savages, the golden-haired
lieutenant was always a prominent figure. When
Cortez, who had now returned with his reinforce-
ments, saw that Mexico was untenable and that their
only salvation was in retreat from the lake city to
the mainland, the post of honor fell to Alvarado.
There were twelve hundred Spaniards and two
thousand Tlaxcaltecan allies, and this force was di-
vided into three commands. The vanguard was led
by Juan Velasquez, the second division by Cortez,
the third, upon which it was expected the brunt of
pursuit would fall, by Alvarado.

All was quiet when the Spaniards crept from their
refuge to try to escape along the dyke.

It was a rainy night, and intensely dark; and
with their horses' hoofs and little cannon mufHed,
the Spaniards moved as quiedy as possible along the
narrow bank, which stretched like a tongue from the
island city to the mainland.

This dyke was cut by three broad sluices, and to
cross them the soldiers carried a portable bridge.
But despite their care the savages promptly detected

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ALVARADCrS LEAP, 173

the movement. Scarcely had they issued from their
barracks and got upon the dyke, when the boom of
the monster war-drum, tiapan huehuetl, from the
summit of the pyramid of sacrifice, burst upon the
still night, — the knell of their hopes. It is an awe-
some sound still, the deep bellowing of that great
three-legged drum, which is used to-day, and can
be heard more than fifteen miles ; and to the Span-
iards it was the voice of doom. Great bonfires shot
up from the teocalli, and they could see the savages
swarming to overwhelm them.

Hurrying as fast as their wounds and burdens
would permit, the Spaniards reached the first sluice
in safety. They threw their bridge over the gulf,
and began crossing. Then the Indians came swarm-
ing in their canoes at either side of the dyke, and
attacked with characteristic ferocity. The beset sol-
diers fought as they struggled on. But as the artil-
lery was crossing the bridge it broke, and down went
cannon, horses, and men forever. Then began the
indescribable horrors of "The Sad Night." There
was no retreat for the Spaniards, for they were as-
sailed on every side. Those behind were pushing on,
and there was no staying even for that gap of black
water. Over the brink man and horse were crowded
in the darkness, and still those behind came on, until
at last the channel was choked with corpses, and the
survivors floundered across the chaos of their dead.
Velasquez, the leader of the vanguard, was slain, and
Spaniard and Tlaxcaltecan were falling like wheat
before the sickle. The second sluice, as well as

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174 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

each side of the dyke, was blocked with canoes fill]
of savage warriors ; and there was another sanguin-
ary mil^e until this gap too was filled with slain, and
over the bridge of human corpses the fugitives gained
the other bank. Alvarado, fighting with the rear-
most to hold in check the savages who followed
along the dyke, was the last to cross ; and before
he could follow his comrades the current suddenly
broke through the ghastly obstruction, and swept the
channel clear. His faithful horse had been killed
under him; he himself was sorely wounded; his
friends were gone, and the merciless foe hemmed
him in. We cannot but be reminded of the Roman

hero, —

" Of him who held the bridge so well
In the brave days of old."

Alvarado's case was fully as desperate as that of
Horatius ; and he rose as manlike to the occasion.
With one swift glance about, he saw that to plunge
into the flood would be sure death. So, with a
supreme effort of his muscular frame, he thrust
down his lance and sprang ! It was a distance
of eighteen feet. Considerably longer jumps have
been recorded. Our own Washington once made
a running jump of over twenty feet in his ath-
letic youth. But considering the surroundings, the
darkness, his wounds, and his load of armor, the
wonderful leap of Alvarado has perhaps never been
surpassed : —

" For fast his blood was flowing,

And he was sore in pain ;
And heavy was his armor,

And spent with changing blows."

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ALVARADaS LEAP. 175 *

But the leap was made, and the heroic leaper
staggered up the farther bank and rejoined his
countrymen.

From here the remnant fought, struggling along
the causeway, to the mainland. The Indians at
last drew off from the pursuit, and the exhausted
Spaniards had time to breathe and look about to
see how many had escaped. The survivors were
few in number. Small wonder if, as the legend tells,
their stout-hearted general, used as he was to a stoic
control of his feelings, sat him down under the cy-
press, which is still pointed out as the tree of the
Noche Triste, and wept a strong man's tears as he
looked upon the pitiful remnant of his brave army.
Of the twelve hundred Spaniards eight hundred and
sixty had perished, and of the survivors not one but
was wounded. Two thousand of his allies, the Tlax-
caltecan Indians, had also been slain. Indeed, had
it not been that the savages tried less to kill than
to capture the Spanish for a more horrible death by
the sacrificial knife, not one would have escaped.
As it was, the survivors saw later three score of their
comrades butchered upon the altar of the great
teocalli.

All the artillery was lost, and so was all the
treasure. Not a grain of powder was left in con-
dition to be used, and their armor was battered out
of recognition. Had the Indians pursued now, the
exhausted men would have fallen easy victims. But
after that terrific struggle the savages were resting
too, and the Spaniards were permitted to escape.

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176 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

They struck out for the friendly pueblo of Tlaxcala
by a circuitous route to avoid their enemies, but
were attacked at every intervening pueblo. In the
plains of Otumba was their most desperate hour.
Surrounded and overwhelmed by the savages, they
gave themselves up for lost. But fortunately Cortez
recognized one of the medicine men by his rich
dress, and in a last desx)erate charge, with Alvarado
and a few other officers, struck down the person
upon whom the superstitious Indians hang so much
of the fate of war. The wizard dead, his awe-struck
followers gave way ; and again the Spaniards came
out from the very jaws of death.

In the siege of Mexico, — the bloodiest and most
romantic siege in all America, — Alvarado was prob-
ably the foremost figure after Cortez. The great
general was the head of that remarkable campaign,
and a head indeed worth having. There is nothing
in history quite like his achievement in having thir-
teen brigantines built at Tlaxcala and transported
on the shoulders of men over fifty miles inland
across the mountains to be launched on the lake
of Mexico and aid in the siege. The nearest to it
was the great feat of Balboa in taking two brigan-
tines across the Isthmus. The exploits of Hannibal
the great Carthaginian at the siege of Tarentum,
and of the Spanish ''Great Captain" Gonzalo de
Cordova at the same place, were not at all to be
compared to either.

In the seventy-three days* fighting of the siege,
Alvarado was the right hand as Cortez was the head.

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ALVARADCyS LEAP. 177

The dashing lieutenant had command of the force
which pushed its assault along the same causeway
by which they had retreated on the Noche Triste,
In one of the battles Cortez's horse was killed under
him, and the conqueror was being dragged off by
the Indians when one of his pages dashed forward
and saved him. In the final assault and desperate
struggle in the city Cortez led half the Spanish
force, and Alvarado the other half; and the latter
it was who conducted that memorable storming of
the great teocalli.

After the conquest of Mexico, in which he had
won such honors, Alvarado was sent by Cortez to
the conquest of Guatemala, with a small force. He
marched down through Oaxaca and Tehuantepec
to Guatemala, meeting a resistance characteristically
Indian. There were three principal tribes in Gua-
temala, — the Quiche, Zutuhil, and Cacchiquel. The
Quiche opposed him in the open field, and he de-
feated them. Then they formally surrendered, made
peace, and invited him to visit them as a friend in
their pueblo of Utatlan. When the Spaniards were
safely in the town and surrounded, the Indians set
fire to the houses and fell fiercely upon their stifling
guests. After a hard engagement Alvarado routed
them, and put the ringleaders to death. The other
two tribes submitted, and in about a year Alvarado
and his little company had achieved the conquest of
Guatemala. His services were rewarded by making
him governor and adelantado of the province ; and
he founded his city of Guatemala, which in his day
12

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1 78 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

probably became something like what Mexico then
was, — a town containing fifteen thousand to twenty
thousand Indians and one thousand Spaniards.

From this, his capital. Governor Alvarado was
frequently absent. There were many expeditions
to be made up and down the wild New World. His
greatest journey was in 1534, when, building his
own vessels as usual, he sailed to Ecuador and made
the difficult march inland to Quito, only to find
himself in Pizarro's territory. So he returned to
Guatemala fruitless.

During one of his absences occurred the frightfid
earthquake which destroyed the city of Guatemala,
and dealt Alvarado a personal blow from which he
never recovered. Above the city towered two great
volcanoes, — the Volcan del Agua and the Volcan
del Fuego. The volcano of water was extinct, and
its crater was filled with a lake. The volcano of
fire was — and is still — active. In that memorable
earthquake the lava rim of the Volcan del Agua was
rent asunder by the convulsion, and its avalanche
of waters tumbled headlong upon the doomed city.
Thousands of the people perished under falling
walls and in the resistless flood; and among the
lost was Alvarado's wife, Dofia Beatriz de la Cueva.
Her death broke the brave soldier's spirit, for he
loved her very dearly.

In the troublous times which befell Mexico after
Cortez had finished his conquest, and began to be
spoiled by prosperity and to make a very unadmir-
able exhibition of himself, Alvarado's support was

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ALVARADCrS LEAP, 179

sought and won by the great and good viceroy,
Antonio de Mendoza, — one of the foremost execu-
tive minds of all time. This was no treachery on
Alvarado's part toward his former commander ; for
Cortez had turned traitor not only to the Crown, but
also to his friends. The cause of Mendoza was the
cause of good government and of loyalty.

It had become necessary to tame the hostile
Nayares Indians, who had caused the Spaniards
great trouble in the province of Jalisco ; and in this
campaign Alvarado joined Mendoza. The Indians
retreated to the top of the huge and apparently
impregnable cliff of the Mixton, and they must be
dislodged at any cost. The storming of that rock
ranks with the storming of Acoma as one of the
most desperate and brilliant ever recorded. The
viceroy commanded in person, but the real achieve-
ment was by Alvarado and a fellow officer. In the
scaling of the cliff Alvarado was hit on the head by
a rock rolled down by the savages, and died from
the wound, — but not until he saw his followers win
that brilliant day.

The man who, next to Alvarado, deserves the
credit of the Mixton was Cristobal de Onate, a
man of distinction for several reasons. He was a
valued officer, a good executive, and one of the first
millionnaires in North America. He was, too, the
father of the colonizer of New Mexico, Juan de
Onate. June 11, 1548, several years after the
battle of the Mixton, the elder Onate discovered
the richest silver mines on the continent, — the

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i8o THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

mines of 2^catecas, in the barren and desolate
plateau where now stands the Mexican city of that
name. These huge veins of "ruby," "black," ar-
senate, and virgin silver made the first millionnaires
in North America, as the conquest of Peru made
the first on the southern continent. The mines of
2^catecas were not so vast as those developed at
Potosi, in Bolivia, which produced between 1541 and
1664 the inconceivable sum of 1641,250,000 in silver ;
but the Zacatecas mines were also enormously pro-
ductive. Their silver stream was the first realization
of the dreams of vast wealth on the northern conti-
nent, and made a startling commercial change in this
part of the New World. Locally, the discovery re-
duced the price of the staples of life about ninety
per cent ! Mexico was never a great gold country,
but for more than three centuries has remained one
of the chief silver producers. It is so to-day, though
its output is not nearly so large as that of the United
States.

Cristobal de Onate was, therefore, a very important
man in the working out of destiny. His " bonanza "
made Mexico a new country, commercially, and his
millions were put to a better use than is always the
case nowadays, for they had the honor of building
two of the first towns in our own United States.

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THE AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE, i8l

IX.

THE AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE.

WE all know of that strange yellow ramskin
which hung dragon-guarded in the dark
groves of Colchis ; and how Jason and his Argo-
nauts won the prize after so many wanderings and
besetments. But in our own New World we have
had a far more dazzling golden fleece than that
mythical pupil of old Cheiron ever chased, and one
that no man ever captured, — though braver men
than Jason tried it. Indeed, there were hundreds
of more than Jasons, who fought harder and suffered
tenfold deadlier fortunes and never clutched the
prize after all. For the dragon which guarded the
American Golden Fleece was no such lap-dog of a
chimera as Jason's, to swallow a pretty potion and
go to sleep. It was a monster bigger than all the
land the Argonauts lived in and all the lands they
roamed; a monster which not man nor mankind
has yet done away with, — the mortal monster of
the tropics.

The myth of Jason is one of the prettiest in an-
tiquity, and it is more than pretty. We are begin-
ning to see what an important bearing a fairy tale
may have on sober knowledge. The myth has

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1 82 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

always somewhere some foundation of truth; and
that hidden truth may be of enduring value. To
study history, indeed, without paying any attention
to the related myths, is to shut off a precious side
light. Human progress, in almost every phase, has
been influenced by this quaint but potent factor.
Where do you fancy chemistry would be if the philo-
sopher's stone and other myths had not lured the
old alchemists to pry into mysteries where they
found never what they sought, but truths of utmost
value to mankind? Geography in particular has
owed almost more of its growth into a science to
myths than to scholarly invention; and the gold
myth, throughout the world, has been the prophet
and inspiration of discovery, and a moulder of
history.

We have been rather too much in the habit of
classing the Spaniards as the gold-hunters, with an
intimation that gold-hunting is a sort of sin, and that
they were monumentally prone to it. But it is not
a Spanish copyright, — the trait is common to all
mankind. The only difference was that the Span-
iards found gold ; and that is offence enough to
"historians" too narrow to consider "what would
the English have done had they found gold in
America at the outset."

I believe it is not denied that when gold was dis-
covered in the uttermost parts of his land the
Saxon found legs to get to it, — and even adopted
measures not altogether handsome in clutching it;
but nobody is so silly as to speak of " the days of

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THE AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE, 183

'49 " as a disgrace to us. Some lamentable pages
there were ; but when California suddenly tipped up
the continent till the strength of the east ran down
to her, she opened one of the bravest and most im-
portant and most significant chapters in our national
story. For gold is not a sin: It is a very necessary
thing, and a very worthy one, as long as we remem-
ber that it is a means and not an end, a tool and
not an accomplishment, — which point of business
common-sense we are quite as apt to forget in Wall
Street as in the mines.

We have largely to thank this universal and per-
fectly proper fondness for gold for giving us America,
— as, in fact, for civilizing most other countries.

The scientific history of to-day has fully shown
how foolishly false is the idea that the Spaniards
sought merely gold; how manfully they provided
for the mind and the soul as well as the pocket.
But gold was with them, as it would be even now
with other men, the strong motive. The great
difference was only that gold did not make them
forget their religion. It was the golden finger that
beckoned Columbus to America, Cortez to Mexico,
Pizarro to Peru, — just as it led us to California,
which otherwise would not have been one of our
States to-day. The gold actually found at first in
the New World was disappointingly little; up to
the conquest of Mexico it aggregated only $500,000.
Cortez swelled the amount, and Pizarro jumped it
up to a fabulous and dazzling figure. But, curiously
enough, the gold that was found did not cut a more

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1 84 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

important figure in the exploration and civilization
of the New World than that which was pursued in
vain. The wonderful myth which stands for the
American Golden Fleece had a more startling effect
on geography and history than the real and incalcu-
lable riches of Peru.

Of this fascinating myth we have very littie popu-
lar knowledge, except that a corruption of its name
is in everybody's mouth. We speak of a rich region
as "an Eldorado/* or "the Eldorado " oftener than
by any other metaphor ; but it is a blunder quite
unworthy of scholars. It is simply saying " an the,"
" the the." The word is Dorado ; and it does not
mean " the golden," as we seem to fancy, but " the
gilded man," being a contraction of the Spanish
el hombre dorado. And the Dorado, or gilded
man, has made a history of achievement beside
which Jason and all his fellow demi-gods sink into
insignificance.

Like all such myths, this had a foundation in fact.
The Colchian ramskin was a poetic fancy of the gold
mines of the Caucasus ; but there really was a gilded
man. The story of him and what he led to is a fairy
tale that has the advantage of being true. It is an
enormously compUcated theme ; but, thanks to Ban-
delier's final unravelling of it, the story can now be
told intelligibly, — as it has not been popularly told
heretofore.

A number of years ago there was found in the
lagoon of Siecha, in New Granada, a quaint litde
group of statuary ; it was of the rude and ancient

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THE AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE, 185

Indian workmanship, and even more precious for its
ethnologic interest than for its material, which was
pure gold. This rare specimen — which is still to
be seen in a museum in Berlin — is a golden raft,
upon which are grouped ten golden figures of men.
It represents a strange custom which was in prehis-
toric times peculiar to the Indians of the village of
GuatavitA, on the highlands of New Granada. That
custom was this : On a certain great day one of the
chiefs of the village used to smear his naked body
with a gum, and then powder himself from head to
foot with pure gold-dust. He was the Gilded Man.
Then he was taken out by his companions on a raft
to the middle of the lake, which was near the village,
and leaping from the raft the Gilded Man used to
wash off his precious and wonderful covering and let
it sink to the bottom of the lake. It was a sacrifice
for the benefit of the village. This custom is his-
torically established, but it had been broken up more
than thirty years before the story was first heard of
by Europeans, — namely, the Spaniards in Venezuela
in 1527. It had not been voluntarily abandoned by
the people of GuatavitA. The warlike Muysca In-
dians of Bogota had ended it by swooping down
upon the village of GuatavitA and nearly extermi-
nating its inhabitants. Still, the sacrifice had been a
fact ; and at that enormous distance and in those
uncertain days the Spaniards heard of it as still a
fact. The story of the Gilded Man, El Hombre
Dorado^ shortened to El Dorado^ was too startling
not to make an impression. It became a household

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l86 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

word, and thenceforward was a lure to all who ap-
proached the northern coast of South America.
We may wonder how such a tale (which had
already become a myth in 1527, since the fact upon
which it was founded had ceased) could hold its
own for two hundred and fifty years without being
fully exploded ; but our surprise will cease when we
remember what a difficult and enormous wilderness
South America was, and how much of it has unex-
plored mysteries even to-day.

The first attempts to reach the Gilded Man were
from the coast of Venezuela. Charles I. of Spain,
afterward Charles V., had pawned the coast of that
Spanish possession to the wealthy Bavarian family of
the Welsers, giving them the right to colonize and
** discover" the interior. In 1529, Ambrosius Dal-
finger and Bartholomew Seyler landed at Coro, Ven-
ezuela, with four hundred men. The tale of the
Gilded Man was already current among the Span-
iards ; and, allured by it, Dalfinger marched inland
to find it. He was a dreadful brute, and his expe-
dition was nothing less than absolute piracy. He
penetrated as far as the Magdalena River, in New
Granada, scattering death and devastation wherever
he went. He found some gold; but his brutality
toward the Indians was so great, and in such a strong
contrast to what they had been accustomed to from
the Spaniards, that the exasperated natives turned,
and his march amounted to a running fight of more
than a year's duration. The trouble was, the Welsers
cared only to get treasure back for the money they

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THE AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE. 187

had paid out, and had none of the real Spanish
spirit of colonizing and christianizing. Dalfinger
failed to find the Gilded Man, and died in 1530 from
a wound received during his infamous expedition.

His successor in command of the Welser inter-
ests, Nicolas Federmann, was not much better as a
man and no more successful as a pioneer. In 1530
he marched inland to discover the Dorado, but his
course was due south from Coro, so he never touched
New Granada. After a fearful march through the
tropical forests he had to return empty-handed in

Here already begins to enter, chronologically, one
of the curious ramifications and variations of this
prolific myth. At first a fact, in thirty years a fable,
now in three years more the Gilded Man began to
be a vagabond will-o'-the-wisp, flitting from one
place to another, and gradually becoming tangled
up in many other myths. The first variation came
in the first attempt to discover the source of the
Orinoco, — the mighty river which it was supposed
could flow only from a great lake. In 1530, Anto-
nio Sedefio sailed from Spain with an expedition to
explore the Orinoco. He reached the Gulf of Paria
and built a fort, intending thence to push his explo-
ration. While he was doing this, Diego de Ordaz,
a former companion of Cortez, had obtained in
Spain a concession to colonize the district then
called Maranon, — a vaguely defined area covering
Venezuela, Guiana, and northern Brazil. He sailed
from Spain in 1531, reached the Orinoco and sailed

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r8S THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

up that river to its falls. Then he had to return,
after two years of vainly trying to overcome the
obstacles before him. But on this expedition he
heard that the Orinoco had its source in a great
lake, and that the road to that lake led through a
province called Meta, said to be fabulously rich in
gold. On the authority of Bandelier, there is no
doubt that this story of Meta was only an echo of
the Dorado tale which had penetrated as far as the
tribes of the lower Orinoco.

Ordaz was followed in 1534 by Geronimo Dortal,
who attempted to reach Meta, but failed even to
get up the Orinoco. In 1535 he tried to penetrate
overland from the northeast coast of Venezuela to
Meta, but made a complete failure. These attempts
from Venezuela, as Bandelier shows, finally localized
the home of the Dorado by limiting it to the north-
western part of the continent. It had been vainly
sought elsewhere, and the inference was that it
must be in the only place left, — the high plateau
of New Granada.

The conquest of the plateau of New Granada,
after many unsuccessful attempts which cannot be
detailed here, was finally made by Gonzalo Xime-
nez de Quesada in 1536--38. That gallant soldier
moved up the Magdalena River with a force of six
hundred and twenty men on foot, and eighty-five
horsemen. Of these only one hundred and eighty
survived when he reached the plateau in the begin-
ning of 1537. He found the Muysca Indians living
in permanent villages, and in possession of gold and

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THE AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE. 189

emeralds. They made a characteristic resistance;
but one tribe after another was overpowered, and
Quesada became the conqueror of New Granada.

The treasure which was divided by the con-
querors amounted to 246,976 pesos de orOy — about
11,250,000 now, — and 1,815 emeralds, some of
which were of enormous size and value. They had
found the real home of the Gilded Man, — and had
even come to GuatavitA, whose people made a
savage resistance, — but of course did not find him,
since the custom had been already abandoned.

Hardly had Quesada completed his great con-
quest when he was surprised by the arrival of two
other Spanish expeditions, which had been led to
the same spot by the myth of the Dorado. One
was led by Federmann, who had penetrated from
the coast of Venezuela to Bogota on this his sec-
ond expedition, — a frightfiil journey. At the
same time, and without the knowledge of either,
Sebastian de Belalcazar had marched up from Quito
in search of the Gilded Man. The story of that
gold-covered chief had penetrated the heart of
Ecuador, and the Indian statements induced Belal-
cazar to march to the spot. An arrangement was
made between the three leaders by which Quesada
was left sole master of the country he had con-
quered, and Federmann and Belalcazar returned
to their respective places.

While Federmann was chasing the myth thus, a
successor to him had already arrived at Coro. This
was the intrepid German known as "George of

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IQO THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

Speyer," whose real name, Bandelier has discovered,
was Geoige Hormuth. Reaching Coro in 1535, he
heard not only of the Dorado, but even of tame
sheep to the southwest, — that is, in the direction of
Peru. Following these vague indications, he started
southwest, but encountered such enormous difficul-
ties in trying to reach the mountain pass, which the
Indians told him led to the land of the Dorado, that
he drifted into the vast and fearful tropical forests
of the upper Orinoco. Here he heard of Meta, and,
following that myth, penetrated to within one degree
of the equator. For twenty-seven months he and
his Spanish followers floundered in the tangled and
swampy wastes between the Orinoco and the Ama-
zon. They met some very numerous and warlike
tribes, most conspicuous of which were the Uaupes.^
They found no gold, but everywhere heard the fable
of a great lake associated with gold. Of the one
hundred and ninety men who started on this expe-
dition only one hundred and thirty came back, and
but fifty of these had strength left to bear arms.
The whole of the indescribably awful trip lasted
three years. The result of its horrors was to deflect
the attention of explorers from the real home of the
Dorado, and to lead them on a wild-goose chase
after a related but rather geographic myth to the
forests of the Amazon. In other words, it prepared
for the exploration of northern Brazil.

Shortly after George of Speyer, and entirely un-
connected with him, Francisco Pizarro, the conqueroi
1 Pronounced W6w-pe8s .

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THE AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE. 191

of Peru, had given an impulse to the exploration of
the Amazon from the Pacific side of the continent.
In 1538, distrusting Belalcazar, he sent his brother,
Gonzalo Pizarro, to Quito to supersede his suspected
lieutenant. The following year Gonzalo heard that
the cinnamon-tree abounded in the forests on the
eastern slope of the Andes, and that farther east
dwelt powerful Indian tribes rich in gold. That is,
while the original and genuine myth of the Dorado
had reached to Quito from the north, the echo myth
of Meta had got there from the east. Since Belalca-
zar had gone to the real former home of the Dorado,
and had failed to find that gentleman at home, it
was supposed that the home must be somewhere
else, — east, instead of north, from Quito. Gonzalo
made his disastrous expedition into the eastern forests
with two hundred and twenty men. In the two years
of that ghastly journey all the horses perished, and so
did all the Indian companions ; and the few Span-
iards who survived to get back to Peru in 1541 were
utterly broken down. The cinnamon-tree had been
found, but not the Gilded Man. One of Gonzalo's
lieutenants, Francisco de Orellana, had gone in
advance on the upper Amazon with fifty men in a
crazy boat. The two companies were unable to
come together again, and Orellana finally drifted
down the Amazon to its mouth with untold sufferings.
Floating out into the Atlantic, they finally reached
the island of Cubagua, Sept. 11, 1541. This expe-
dition was the first to bring the world reliable infor-
mation as to the size and nature of the greatest

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192 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

river on earth, and also to give that river the name
it bears to-day. They encountered Indian tribes
whose women fought side by side with the men, and
for that reason named it Rio de las Amazones^ —
River of the Amazons.

In 1543 Heman Perez Quesada, a brother of the
conqueror, penetrated the regions which George of
Speyer had visited. He went in from Bogota, hav-
ing heard the twisted myth of Meta, but only found
misery, hunger, disease, and hostile savages in the six-
teen awful months he floundered in the wilderness.

Meanwhile Spain had become satisfied that the
leasing of Venezuela to the German money-lenders
was a failure. The Welser regime was doing nothing
but harm. Yet a last effort was determined upon,
and Philip von Hutten, a young and gallant German
cavalier, left Coro in August, 1541, in chase of the
golden myth, which by this time had flitted as far
south as the Amazon. For eighteen months he wan-
dered in a circle, and then, hearing of a powerful and
gold-rich tribe called the Omaguas, he dashed on
south across the equator with his force of forty men.
He met the Omaguas, was defeated by them and
wounded, and finally struggled back to Venezuela
after suffering for more than three years in the most
impassable forests and swamps of the tropics. Upon
his return he was murdered ; and that was the last
of the German domination in Venezuela.

The fact that the Omaguas had been able to de-
feat a Spanish company in open battle gave that
tribe a great reputation. So strong in numbers and

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THE AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE, 193

in bravery, it was naturally supposed that they must
also have metallic wealth, though no evidence of
that had been seen.

Driven from its home, the myth of the Gilded
Man had become a wandering ghost. Its original
form had been lost sight of, and from the Dorado
had gradually been changed to a golden tribe. It
had become a confusion and combination of the
Dorado and Meta, following the curious but char-
acteristic course of myths. First, a remarkable fact ;
then the story of a fact that had ceased to be ; then
a far-off echo of that story, entirely robbed of the
fundamental facts ; and at last a general tangle and
jumble of fact, story, and echo into a new and
almost unrecognizable myth.

This vagabond and changeling myth figured prom-
inently in 1550 in the province of Peru. In that
year several hundred Indians from the middle course
of the Amazon — that is, from about the heart of
northern Brazil — took refuge in the eastern Spanish
settlements in Peru, lliey had been driven from
their homes by the hostility of neighbor tribes, and
had reached Peru only after several years of toilsome
wanderings.

They gave exaggerated accounts of the wealth and
importance of the Omaguas, and these tales were
eagerly credited. Still, Peru was now in no condi-
tion to undertake any new conquest, and it was not
till ten years after the arrival of these Indian refu-
gees that any step was taken in the matter. The
first viceroy of Peru, the great and good Antonio de
la

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194 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

Mendoza, who had been promoted from the vice-
royalty of Mexico to this higher dignity, saw in this
report the chance for a stroke of wisdom. He had
cleared Mexico of a few hundred restless fellows who
were a great menace to good government, by sending
them off to chase the golden phantom of the Quivira
— that remarkable expedition of Coronado which
was so important to the history of the United States.
He now found in his new province a similar but
much worse danger ; and it was to rid Peru of its
unruly and dangerous characters that Mendoza set on
foot the famous expedition of Pedro de Ursua. It
was the most numerous body of men ever assembled
for such a purpose in Spanish America in the six-
teenth century, but was composed of the worst and
most desperate elements that the Spanish colonies
ever contained. Ursua's force was concentrated on
the banks of the upper Amazon; July i, 1560, the
first brigantine floated down the great river. The
main body followed in other brigantines on the 36 th
of September.

The country was one vast tropical forest, abso-
lutely deserted. It soon became apparent that
their golden expectations could never be realized,
and discontent began to play a bloody rdle. The
throng of desperadoes by whose practical banish-
ment the wise viceroy had purified Peru, could not
be expected to get along well together. No longer
scattered among good citizens who could restrain
them, but in condensed rascality, they soon began
to suggest the fable of the Kilkenny cats. Their
voyage was an orgie entirely indescribable.

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THB AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE, 195

Among these scoundrels was one of peculiar char-
acter, — a physically deformed but very ambitious
fellow, who had every reason not to wish to return
to Peru. This was Lope de Aguirre. Seeing that
the object of the expedition must absolutely fail, he
began to form a nefarious plot. If they could not
get gold in the way they had hoped, why not in
another way? In short, he conceived the audacious
plan of turning traitor to Spain and everything else,
and founding a new empire. To achieve this he
felt it necessary to remove the leaders of the expe-
dition, who might have scruples against betraying
their country. So, as the wretched brigantines
floated down the great river, they became the stage
of a series of atrocious tragedies. First, the com-
mander Ursua was assassinated, and in his place
was put a young but dissolute nobleman, Fernando
de Guzman. He was at once elevated to the
dignity of a prince, — the first open step toward
high treason.

Then Guzman was murdered, and also the in-
famous Yiiez de Atienza, a woman who bore a
shameful part in the affair; and the misshapen
Aguirre became leader and " tjrrant." His treason
was now undisguised, and he commanded the ex-
pedition thenceforth not as a Spanish officer, but
as a tebel and a pirate. As he steered toward the
Atlantic, it was with plans of appalling magnitude
and daring. He intended to sail to the Gulf of
Mexico, land on the Isthmus, seize Panama, and
thence sail to Peru, where he would kill off all who
opposed him, and establish an empire of his own !

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196 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

But a curious accident brought his plans to
nought. Instead of reaching the mouth of the
Amazon, the flotilla drifted to the left, in that won-
derfully tangled river, and got into the Rio Negro.
The sluggish currents prevented their discovering
their mistake, and they worked ahead into the
Cassiquiare, and thence into the Orinoco. On the
ist of July, 1 5 61 (a year to a day had been passed in
navigating the labyrinth, and the days had been
marked with murder right and left), the desper-
adoes reached the Atlantic Ocean; but through
the mouth of the Orinoco, and not, as they had
expected, through the Amazon. Seventeen days
later they sighted the island of Margarita, where
there was a Spanish post. By treachery they seized
the island, and then proclaimed their independence
of Spain.

This step gave Aguirre money and some ammuni-
tion, but he still lacked vessels for a voyage by sea.
He tried to seize a large vessel which was conveying
the provincial Monticinos, a Dominican missionary,
to Venezuela ; but his treachery was frustrated, and
the alarm was given on the mainland. Ipfuriated
by his failure, the little monster butchered the royal
officers of Margarita. His plan to reach Panama
was balked ; but he succeeded at last in capturing
a smaller vessel, by means of which he landed on
the coast of Venezuela in August, 1561. His ca-
reer on the mainland was one of crime and rapine.
The people, taken by surprise, and unable to make
immediate resistance to the outlaw, fled at his

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THE AMMHICAN GOLDEtf PLBECB. 197

approach. The authorities sent as fiar as New
Granada in dieir appeals for help ; and all northern
South America was terrorized.

Aguirre proceeded without opposition as far as
Barquecimeto. He found that place deserted ; but
very soon there arrived the maestro de campo,
(Colonel) Diego de Paredes, with a hastily collected
loyal force. At the same time Quesada, the con-
queror of New Granada^ was hastening against the
traitor with what force he could muster. Aguirre
found himself blockaded in Barquecimeto, and his
followers began to desert. Finally, left almost alone,
Aguirre slew his daughter (who had shared all those
awful wanderings) and surrendered himself. The
Spanish commander did not wish to execute the
arch-traitor; but Aguirre's own followers insisted
upon his death, and secured it.

There were many subsequent attempts to discover
the Gilded Man ; but they were of little importance,
except the one undertaken by Sir Walter Raleigh
in 1595. He got only as Tar as the Salto Coroni, —
that is, failed to achieve anything like as great a
feat as even Ordaz, — but returned to England with
glowing accounts of a great inland lake and rich
nations. He had mixed up the legend of the
Dorado with reports of the Incas of Peru, — which
proves that the Spanish were not the only people
to swallow fables. Indeed, the English and other
explorers were fully as creduloas and fully as anxious
to get to the fabled gold.

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198 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

The myth of the great lake, the lake of Parime,*
gradually absorbed the myth of the Gilded Man.
The historic tradition became merged and lost in
the geographic fable. Only in the eastern forests of
Peru did the Dorado re-appear in the beginning of
the last century, but as a distorted and groundless
tale. But Lake Parime remained on the maps and
in geographical descriptions. It is a curious co-
incidence that where the golden tribes of Meta
were once believed to exist, the gold fields of
Guiana (now a bone of contention between Eng-
land and Venezuela) have recently been discov-
ered. It is certain that Meta was only a myth, but
even the myth was useful.

The fable of the lake of Parime — long believed
in as a great lake with whole ranges of mountains of
silver behind it — was folly exploded by Humboldt
in the beginning of the present century. He showed
that there was neither a great lake nor were there
mountains of silver. The broad savannas of the
Orinoco, when overflowed in the rainy season, had
been taken for a lake, and the silver background
was simply the shimmer of the sunlight on peaks
of micaceous rock.

With Humboldt finally perished the most remark-
able fairy tale in history. No other myth or legend
in either North or South America ever exercised
such a powerful influence on the course of geograph-
ical discovery ; none ever called out such surpassing
human endeavor, and none so well illustrated the
1 Pronounced Pah-r(f^may.

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THB AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE, 199

matchless tenacity of purpose and the self-sacrifice
inherent in the Spanish character. It is a new lesson
to most of us, but a true and proved one, that this
southern nation, more impulsive and impetuous than
those of the north, was also more patient and more
enduring.

The myth died, but it had not existed in vain.
Before it had been disproved, it had brought about
the exploration of the Amazon, the Orinoco, all
Brazil north of the Amazon, all Venezuela, all New
Granada, and eastern Ecuador. If we look at the
map a moment, we shall see what this means, — that
the Gilded Man gave to the world the geography of
all South America above the equator.

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III.

THE GREATEST CONQUEST.

PIZARRO AND PERU.

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I.

THE SWINEHERD OF TRUXILLO.

SOMEWHERE between the years 1471 and 1478,
(we are not sure of the exact date), an unfortu-
nate boy was bom in the city of Truxillo,* province
of Estremadilra, Spain. He was an illegitimate son
of Colonel Gonzalo Pizarro,* who had won distinc-
tion in the wars in Italy and Navarre. But his par-
entage was no help to him. The disgraced baby
never had a home, — it is even said that he was left
as a foundling at the door of a church. He grew up
to young manhood in ignorance and abject poverty,
without schools or care or helping hands, thrown
entirely upon his own resources to keep from starv-
ing. Only the most menial occupations were open
to him ; but he seems to have done his best with
them. How the neighbor-boys would have laughed
and hooted if one had said to them : " That dirty,
ragged youngster who drives his pigs through the
oak-groves of B^tremadi^ra will one day be the
greatest man in a new world which no one has yet
seen, and will be a more famous soldier than our
Great Captain,' and will divide more gold than the

^ Pronounced Troo-heel-yo. ^ Pronounced Pee-j<f>i-roh. .
* The famous European campaigner, De Cordova.

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204 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

king has ! " And we could not have blamed them
for their sneers. The wisest man in Europe then
would have believed as little as they such a wild
prophecy; for truly it was the most improbable
thing in the world.

But the boy who could herd swine faithfully when
there was no better work to do, could turn his hand
to greater things when greater offered, and do them
as well. Luckily the New World came just in time
for him. If it had not been for Columbus, he might
have lived and died a swineherd, and history would
have lost one of its most gallant figures, as well as
many more of those to whom the adventurous Geno-
ese opened the door of fame. To thousands of
men as undivined by themselves as by others, there
was then nothing to see in life but abject obscurity in
crowded, ignorant, poverty-stricken Europe. When
Spain suddenly found the new land beyond the seas,
it caused such a wakening of mankind as was
never before nor ever has been since. There was,
almost literally, a new world ; and it made almost a
new people. Not merely the brilliant and the great
profited by this wonderful change ; there was none
so poor and ignorant that he might not now spring
up to the full stature of the man that was in him.
It was, indeed, the greatest beginning of human
liberty, the first opening of the door of equality, the
first seed of free nations like our own. The Old
World was the field of the rich and favored ; but
America was already what it is so proud to be to-day,
— the poor man's chance. And it is a very striking

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THB SWINEHERD OB TRUXILLO, 205

fact that nearly all who made great names in Amer-
ica were not of those who came great, but of the
obscure men who won here the admiration of a
world which had never heard of them before. 01
all these and of all others, Pizarro was the greatest
pioneer. The rise of Napoleon himself was not a
more startling triumph of will and genius over every
obstacle, nor as creditable morally.

We do not know the year in which Francisco
Pizarro, the swineherd of Truxillo, reached America ;
but his first importance here began in 15 10. In
that year he was already in the island of Espafiola,
and accompanied Ojeda ^ on the disastrous expedi-
tion to Urabd on the mainland. Here he showed
himself so brave and prudent that Ojeda left him in
charge of the ill-fated colony of San Sebastian,
while he himself should return to Espanola for help.
This first honorable responsibility which fell to
Pizarro was full of danger and suffering; but he
was equal to the emergency, and in him began to
grow that rare and patient heroism which was later
to bear him up through the most dreadful years that
ever conqueror had. For two months he waited in
that deadly spot, until so many had died that the sur-
vivors could at last crowd into their one boat.

Then Pizarro joined Balboa, and shared that
frightful march across the Isthmus and that brilliant
honor of the discovery of the Pacific. When Bal-
boa's gallant career came to a sudden and bloody
ending, Pizarro was thrown upon the hands of Pedro
^ Pronounced 0-^^>-dah.

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2o6 THE SPANISH PJONEERS.

Arias Davila, who sent him on several minor expedi'
tions. In 15 15 he crossed the Isthmus again, and
probably heard vaguely of Peru. But he had nei-
ther money nor influence to launch out for himself.
He accompanied Governor Davila when that offi-
cial moved to Panama, and won respect in several
small expeditions. But at fifty years of age he was
still a poor man and an unknown one, — an humble
ranchero near Panama. On that pestilent and wild
Isthmus there had been very little chance to make
up for the disadvantages of his youth. He had not
learned to read or write, — indeed, he never did
learn. But it is evident that he had learned some
more important lessons, and had developed a man-
hood equal to any call the future might make upon it.
In 1522, Pascual de Andag6ya made a short
voyage from Panama down the Pacific coast, but
got no farther than Balboa had gone years before.
His failure, however, called new attention to the un-
known countries to the south ; and Pizarro burned
to explore them. The mind of the man who had
been a swineherd was the only one that grasped
the importance of what awaited discovery, — his
courage, the only courage ready to face the obsta-
cles that lay between. At last, he found two men
ready to listen to his plans and to help him. These
were Diego de Almagro * and Hernando de Luque.*
Almagro was a soldier of fortune, a foundling like
Pizarro, but better educated and somewhat olden

1 Pronounced Dee^,y-go day Al-m^i^-gro.
' Pronounced Er-if^ii-do day Zoo-kay,

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THE SWINEHERD OF TRUXILLO, 207

He was a brave man physically ; but he lacked the
high moral courage as well as the moral power of
Pizarro. He was in every way a lower grade of man,
— more what would have been expected from their
common birth than was that phenomenal character
which was as much at home in courts and conquest
as it had been in herding beasts. Not only could
Pizarro accommodate himself to any range of for-
tune, but he was as unspoiled by power as by
poverty. He was a man of principle ; a man of
his word ; inflexible, heroic, yet prudent and hu-
mane, generous and just, and forever loyal, — in all
of which qualities Almagro fell far below him.

De Luque was a priest, vicar at Panama. He
was a wise and good man, to whom the two soldiers
were greatly indebted. They had nothing but strong
arms and big courage for the expedition ; and he
had to furnish the means. This he did with money
he secured from the licentiate Espinosa, a lawyer.
The consent of the governor was necessary, as in all
Spanish provinces ; and though Governor Davila did
not seem to approve of the expedition, his permis-
sion was secured by promising him a share of the
profits, while he was not called upon for any of
the expenses. Pizarro was given command, and
sailed in November, 1524, with one hundred men.
Almagro was to follow as soon as possible, hoping
to recruit more men in the little colony.

After coasting a short distance to the south, Pi-
zarro effected a landing. It was an inhospitable
spot. The explorers found themselves in a vast,

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208 THB SPANISH PIONEERS.

tropical swamp, where progress was made almost im
possible by the morasses and by the dense growth.
The miasma of the marsh brooded everywhere,
an intangible but merciless foe. Clouds of veno-
mous insects hung upon them. To think of flies
as a danger to life is strange to those who know
only the temperate zones ; but in some parts of the
tropics the insects are more dreadful than wolves.
From the swamps the exhausted Spaniards strug-
gled through to a range of hills, whose sharp rocks
(lava, very likely) cut their feet to the bone. And
there was nothing to cheer them ; all was the same
hopeless wilderness. They toiled back to their rude
brigantine, fainting under the tropic heat, and re-em-
barked. Taking on wood and water, they pursued
their course south. Then came savage storms,
which lasted ten days. Hurled about on the waves,
their crazy little vessel barely missed falling asun-
der. Water ran short ; and as for food, they had to
live on two ears of com apiece daily. As soon as
the weather would permit they put to a landing, but
found themselves again in a trackless and impenetra-
ble forest. These strange, vast forests of the tropics
( forests as big as the whole of Europe) are Nature's
most forbidding side ; the pathless sea and the des-
ert plains are not so lonely or so deadly. Gigantic
trees, sometimes much more than a hundred feet in
circumference, grow thick and tall, their bases
buried in eternal gloom, their giant columns inter-
woven with mighty vines, so that it is no longer a
forest but a wall. Every step must be won by the

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THE SWINEHERD OF TRUXILLO, 209

axe. Huge and hideous snakes and great saurians
are there ; and in the hot, damp air lurks a foe
deadlier than python or alligator or viper, — the
tropic pestilence.

The men were no weaklings, but in this dreadful
wilderness they soon lost hope. They began to
curse Pizarro for leading them only to a miserable
death, and clamored to sail back to Panama. But
this only served to show the difference between men
who were only brave physically and those of moral
courage like Pizarro's. He had no thought of giving
up j yet as his men were ripe for mutiny, something
must be done ; and he did a very bright thing, —
one of the small first flashes of that genius which
danger and extremity finally developed so conspicu-
ously. He cheered his followers even while he was
circumventing their mutiny. Montenegro, one of
the officers, was sent back with the brigantine and
half the little army to the Isle of Pearls for supplies.
That kept the expedition from being given up.
Pizarro and his fifty men could not return to Pan-
ama, for they had no boat; and Montenegro and
his companions could not well fail to come back
with succor. But it was a bitter waiting for relief.
For six weeks the starving Spaniards floundered in
the swamps, from which they could find no exit.
There was no food except the shellfish they picked
up and a few berries, some of which proved poison-
ous and caused tortures to those who ate them.
Pizarro shared the hardships of his men with unself-
ish gentleness, dividing with the poorest soldier, and
14

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2XO THB SPANISH PIONBBUS,

toiling like the rest, always with brave words to cheer
them up. More than twenty men — nearly half the
little force — died under their hardships; and all
the survivors lost hope save the stout-hearted com-
mander. When they were almost at the last gasp, a
far light gleaming through the forest aroused them ;
and forcing their way in that direction they came
at last to open ground, where was an Indian village
whose com and cocoanuts saved the emaciated
Spaniards. These Indians had a few rude gold orna-
ments, and told of a rich country to the south.

At last Montenegro got back with the vessel and
supplies to Puerto de la Hambre, or the Port of
Hunger, as the Spaniards named it. He too had
suffered greatly from hunger, having been delayed
by storms. The reunited force sailed on southward,
and presently came to a more open coast. Here
was another Indian village. Its people had fled^
but the explorers found food and some gold trinkets.
They were horrified, however, at discovering that
they were among cannibals, for before the fireplaces
human legs and arms were roasting. They put to
sea in the teeth of a storm sooner than remain in
so repulsive a spot. At the headland, which they
named Punta Quemada, — the Burnt Cape, — they
had to land again, their poor bark being so strained
that it was in great danger of going to the bottom.
Montenegro was sent inland with a small force to
eiEplore, while Pizarro camped at a deserted Indiaa
ranckeria. The lieutenant had penetrated but a
few miles when he was ambushed by the savages.

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THB SWINEHERD OF TRUXILLO. 211

and three Spaniards were slain. Montenegro's men
had not even muskets ; but with sword and cross-
bow they fought hard, and at last drove off their
dusky foes. The Indians, failing there, made a
rapid march back to their village, and knowing the
paths got there ahead of Montenegro and made a
sudden attack. Pizarro led his little company out
to meet them, and a fierce but unequal fight began.
The Spaniards were at great odds, and their case
was desperate. In the first volley of the enemy,
Pizarro received seven wounds^ — a fact which in itself
is enough to ^how you what slight advantage their
armor gave the Spaniards over the Indians, while it
was a fearful burden in the tropic heats and amid
such agile foes. The Spaniards had to give way;
and as they retreated, Pizarro slipped and fell. The
Indians, readily recognizing that he was the chief,
had directed their special efforts to slay him ; and
now several sprang upon the fallen and bleeding
warrior. But Pizarro struggled up and struck down
two of them with supreme strength, and fought off
the rest till his men could run to his aid. Then
Montenegro came up and fell upon the savages from
behind, and soon the Spaniards were masters of the
field. But it had been dearly bought, and their
leader saw plainly that he could not succeed in
that savage land with such a weak force. His next
step must be to get reinforcements.

He accordingly sailed back to Chicami, and re-
maining there with most of his men, — again care-
ful not to give them a chance to desert, — sent

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212 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

Nicolas de Ribera, with the gold so far collected and
a full account of their doings, to Governor Davila
at Panama.

Meanwhile Almagro, after long delays, had sailed
with sixty men in the second vessel from Panama
to follow Pizarro. He found the " track " by trees
Pizarro had marked at various points, according to
their agreement. At Punta Quemada he landed, and
the Indians gave him a hostile reception. Almagro's
blood was hot, and he charged upon them bravely.
In the action, an Indian javelin wounded him so
severely in the head that after a few days of intense
suffering he lost one of his eyes. But despite this
great misfortune he kept on his voyage. It was the
one admirable side of the man, — his great brute
courage. He could face danger and pain bravely ;
but in a very few days he proved that the higher
courage was lacking. At the river San Juan (St.
John) the loneliness and uncertainty were too much
for Almagro, and he turned back toward Panama.
Fortunately, he learned that his captain was at Chi-
camd, and there joined him. Pizarro had no thought
of abandoning the enterprise, and he so impressed
Almagro — who only needed to be led to be ready
for any daring — that the two solemnly vowed to
each other to see the voyage to the end or die like
men in trying. Pizarro sent him on to Panama to
work for help, and himself stayed to cheer his men
in pestilent Chicamd.

Governor Davila, at best an unenterprising and
unadmirable man, was just now in a particularly bad

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THE SWINEHERD OP TRUXILLO. 213

humor to be asked for help. One of his subordi-
nates in Nicaragua needed punishment, he thought,
and his own force was small for the purpose. He
bitterly regretted having allowed Pizarro to go off
with a hundred men who would be so useful now,
and refused either to help the expedition or to per-
mit it to go on. De Luque, whose calling and char-
acter made him influential in the little colony, finally
persuaded the mean-hearted governor not to inter-
fere with the expedition. Even here Davila showed
his nature. As the price of his official consent, —
without which the voyage could not go on, — he
extorted a payment of a thousand pesos de oro, for
which he also relinquished all his claims to the profits
of the expedition, which he felt sure would amount
to little or nothing. A peso de oro^ or " dollar of
gold," had about the intrinsic value of our dollar, but
was then really worth far more. In those days of
the world gold was far scarcer than now, and there-
fore had much more purchasing power. The same
weight of gold would buy about five times as much
then as it will now; so what was called a dollar,
and weighed a dollar, was really worth about five
dollars. The "hush-money" extorted by Davila
was therefore some $5,000.

Fortunately, about this time Davila was super-
seded by a new governor of Panama, Don Pedro de
los Rios, who opposed no further obstacles to the
great plan. A new contract was entered into be-
tween Pizarro, Almagro, and Luque, dated March 10,
1526. The good vicar had advanced gold bars to

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214 ^^^ SPANISH PIONEERS.

the amount of one hundred thousand dollars for the
expedition ; and was to receive one third of all the
profits. But in reality most of this large sum had
come from the licentiate Espinosa; and a private
contract insured that Luque's share should be turned
over to him. Two new vessels, larger and better
than the worn-out brigantine which had been built
by Balboa, were purchased and filled with provisions.
The little army was swelled by recruits to one hun-
dred and sixty men, and even a few horses were
secured ; and the second expedition was ready.

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THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP. 215

II.

THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP.

WITH so inadequate a force, yet much
stronger than before, Pizarro and Almagro
sailed again on their dangerous mission. The pilot
was Bartolom6 Ruiz, a brave and loyal Andalusian
and a good sailor. The weather was better now,
and the adventurers pushed on hopefully. After a
few days' sail they reached the Rio San Juan, which
was as far as any European had ever sailed down
that coast : it will be remembered that this was where
Almagro had got discouraged and turned back. Here
were more Indian settlements, and a little gold ; but
here too the vastness and savagery of the wilderness
became more apparent. It is hard for us to con-
ceive at all, in these easy days, how lost these
explorers were. Then there was not a white man
in all the world who knew what lay beyond them;
and the knowledge of something somewhere ahead
is the most necessary prop to courage. We can
understand their situation only by supjDOsing a band
of schoolboys — brave boys but unlearned — carried
blindfold a thousand miles, and set down in a track-
less wilderness they had never heard of.

Pizarro halted here with part of his men, and
sent Almagro back to Panama with one vessel for

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2l6 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

recruits, and Pilot Ruiz south with the other to
explore the coast. Ruiz coasted southward as far as
Punta de Pasado, and was the first white man who
ever crossed the equator on the Pacific, — no small
honor. He found a rather more promising country,
and encountered a large raft with cotton sails, on
which were several Indians. They had mirrors
(probably of volcanic glass, as was common to the
southern aborigines) set in silver, and ornaments of
silver and gold, besides remarkable cloths, on which
were woven figures of beasts, birds, and fishes. The
cruise lasted several weeks; and Ruiz got back to
the San Juan barely in time. Pizarro and his men
had suffered awful hardships. They had made a
gallant effort to get inland, but could not escape the
dreadful tropical forest, " whose trees grew to the
sky." The dense growth was not so lonely as their
earlier forests. There were troops of chattering
monkeys and brilliant parrots; around the huge
trees coiled lazy boas, and alligators dozed by the
sluggish lagoons. Many of the Spaniards perished
by these grim, strange foes ; some were crushed to
pulp in the mighty coils of the snakes, and some
were crunched between the teeth of the scaly sau-
rians. Many more fell victims to lurking savages ;
in a single swoop fourteen of the dwindling band
were slain by Indians, who surrounded their stranded
canoe. Food gave out too, and the survivors were
starving when Ruiz got back with a scant relief but
cheering news. Very soon too Almagro arrived,
with supplies and a reinforcement of eighty men.

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THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP, 21 7

The whole expedition set sail again for the south.
But at once there rose persistent storms. After
great suffering the explorers got back to the Isle of
Gallo, where they stayed two weeks to repair their
disabled vessels and as badly shattered bodies.
Then they sailed on again down the unknown seas.
The country was gradually improving. The malarial
tropic forests no longer extended into the very sea.
Amid the groves of ebony and mahogany were
occasional clearings, with rudely cultivated fields,
and also Indian settlements of considerable size. In
this region were gold-washings and emerald- mines,
and the natives had some valuable ornaments. The
Spaniards landed, but were set upon by a vastly
superior number of savages, and escaped destruction
only in a very curious way. In the uneven battle
the Spaniards were sorely pressed, when one of their
number fell from his horse ; and this trivial incident
put the swarming savages to flight. Some historians
have ridiculed the idea that such a trifle could have
had such an effect; but that is merely because of
ignorance of the facts. You must remember that
these Indians had never before seen a horse. The
Spanish rider and his steed they took for one huge
animal, strange and fearful enough at best, — a
parallel to the old Greek myth of the Centaurs, and
a token of the manner in which that myth began.
But when this great unknown beast divided itself
into two parts, which were able to act independently
of each other, it was too much for the superstitious
Indians, and they fled in terror. The Spaniards

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2l8 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

escaped to their vessels, and gave thanks for their
strange deliverance.

But this narrow escape had shown more clearly
how inadequate their handful of men was to cope
with the wild hordes. They must again have rein-
forcements; and back they sailed to the Isle of
Gallo, where Pizarro was to wait while Almagro
went to Panama for help. You see Pizarro always
took the heaviest and hardest burden for himself,
and gave the easiest to his associate. It was always
Almagro who was sent back to the comforts of civ-
ilization, while his lion-hearted leader bore the
waiting and danger and suffering. The greatest
obstacle all along now was in the soldiers them-
selves, — and I say this with a full realization of
the deadly perils and enormous hardships. But
perils and hardships without are to be borne more
easily than treachery and discontent within. At
every step Pizarro had to carry his men, — morally.
They were constantly discouraged (for which they
surely had enough reason) ; and when discouraged
they were ready for any desperate act, except going
ahead. So Pizarro had constantly to be will and
courage not only for himself, who suffered as cruelly
as the meanest, but for all. It was like the stout
soul we sometimes see holding up a half-dead body,
— a body that would long ago have broken loose
from a less intrepid spirit.

The men were now mutinous again ; and despite
Pizarro's gallant example and efforts, they came
very near wrecking the whole enterprise. They

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THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIV£ UP. 219

sent by Almagro to the governor's wife a ball of
cotton as a sample of the products of the country ;
but in this apparently harmless present the cowards
had hidden a letter, in which they declared that
Pizarro was leading them only to death, and warned
others not to follow. A doggerel verse at the end
set forth that Pizarro was a butcher waiting for more
meat, and that Almagro went to Panama to gather
sheep to be slaughtered.

The letter reached Governor de los Rios, and
made him very indignant. He sent the Cordovan
Tafur with two vessels to the Isle of Gallo to bring
back every Spaniard there, and thus stop an expedi-
tion the importance of which his mind could not
grasp. Pizarro and his men were suffering terribly,
always drenched by the storms, and nearly starving.
When Tafur arrived, all but Pizarro hailed him as
a deliverer, and wanted to go home at once. But
the captain was not daunted. With his dagger he
drew a line upon the sands, and looking his men in
the face, said : ** Comrades and friends, on that side
are death, hardship, starvation, nakedness, storms;
on this side is comfort. From this side you go to
Panama *to be poor ; from that side to Peru to be
rich. Choose, each who is a brave Castilian, that
which he thinks best."

As he sjDoke he stepped across the line to the
south. Ruiz, the brave Andalusian pilot, stepped
after him ; and so did Pedro de Candia, the Greek,
and one after another eleven more heroes, whose
names deserve to be remembered by all who love

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220 THE SPANISH PIONBBRS,

loyalty and courage. They were Crist6val de Peralta,
Domingo de Soria Luce, Nicolas de Ribera, Fran-
cisco de Cuellar, Alonso de Molina, Pedro Alcon,
Garcia de Jerez, Anton de Carrion, Alonso Briceno,
Martin de Paz, and Juan de la Torre.

The narrow Tafur could see in this heroism only
disobedience to the governor, and would not leave
them one of his vessels. It was with difficulty that
he was prevailed upon to give them a few provisions,
even to keep them from immediate starvation ; and
with his cowardly passengers he sailed back to Pan-
ama, leaving the fourteen alone upon their litde
island in the unknown Pacific.

Did you ever know of a more remarkable hero-
ism? Alone, imprisoned by the great sea, with
very little food, no boat, no clothing, almost no
weapons, here were fourteen men still bent on con-
quering a savage country as big as Europe 1 Even
the prejudiced Prescott admits that in all the annals
of chivalry there is nothing to surpass this.

The Isle of Gallo became uninhabitable, and
Pizarro and his men made a frail raft and sailed
north seventy-five miles to the Isle of Gorgona.
This was higher land, and had some timber, and the
explorers made rude huts for shelter from the storms.
Their sufferings were great from hunger, exposure,
and venomous creatures which tortured them relent-
lessly. Pizarro kept up daily religious services, and
every day they thanked God for their preservation,
and prayed for his continued protection. Pizarro
was always a devout man, and never thought of act-

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THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP. 221

ing without invoking divine help, nor of neglecting
thanks for his successes. It was so to the last, and
even with his last gasp his dying fingers traced the
cross he revered.

For seven indescribable months the fourteen de-
serted men waited and suffered on their lonely reef.
Tafur had reached Panama safely, and reported their
refusal to return. Governor de los Rios grew angrier
yet, and refused to help the obstinate castaways. But
De Luque, reminding him that his orders from the
Crown commanded assistance to Pizarro, at last in-
duced the niggard governor to allow a vessel to be
sent with barely enough sailors to man it, and a small
stock of provisions. But with it went strict orders
to Pizarro to return, and report at the end of six
months, no matter what happened. The rescuers
found the brave fourteen on the Isle of Gorgona ;
and Pizarro was at last enabled to resume his voyage,
with a few sailors and an army of eleven. Two of
the fourteen were so sick that they had to be left on
the island in the care of friendly Indians, and with
heavy hearts their comrades bade them farewell.

Pizarro sailed on south. Soon they passed the
farthest point a European had ever reached, — Punta
de Pasado, which was the limit of Ruiz's explorations,
— and were again in unknown seas. After twenty
days* sail they entered the Gulf of Guayaquil, in
Ecuador, and anchored in the Bay of Tumbez.
Before them they saw a large Indian town with per-
manent houses. The blue bay was dotted with
Indian sail-rafts ; and far in the background loomed

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222 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

the giant peaks of the Andes. We may imagine how
the Spaniards were impressed by their first sight of
mountains that rose more than twenty thousand feet
above them.

The Indians came out on their balsas (rafts) to
look at these marvellous strangers, and being treated
with the utmost kindness and consideration, soon lost
their fears. The Spaniards were given presents of
chickens, swine, and trinkets, and had brought to
them bananas, com, sweet potatoes, pineapples, co-
coanuts, game, and fish. You may be sure these
dainties were more than welcome to the gaunt ex-
plorers after so many starving months. The Indians
also brought aboard several llamas, — the character-
istic and most valuable quadruped of South America.
The fascinating but misled historian who has done
more than any other one man in the United States to
spread an interesting but absolutely false idea of Peru,
calls the llama the Peruvian sheep ; but it is no more
a sheep than a giraffe is. The llama is the South
American camel (a true camel, though a small one) ,
the beast of burden whose slow, sure feet and patient
back have made it possible for man to subdue a
country so mountainous in parts as to make horses
useless. Besides being a carrier it is a producer of
clothing ; it supplies the camel's hair which is woven
into the woollen garments of the people. There
were three other kinds of camel, — the vicuna, the
guanaco, and the alpaca, — all small, and all vari-
ously prized for their hair, which still surpasses the
wool of the best sheep for making fine fabrics. The

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THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP. 223

Peruvians domesticated the llama in large flocks,
and it was their most important helper. They were
the only aborigines in the two Americas who had a
beast of burden before the Europeans came, except
the Apaches of the Plains and the Eskimos, both of
whom had the dog and the sledge.

At Tumbez, Alonso de Molina was sent ashore to
look at the town. He came back with such gorgeous
reports of gilded temples and great forts that Pizarro
distrusted him, and sent Pedro de Candia. This
Greek, a na-
tive of the I ^ ?
Isle of Can-
dia, was a ,
man of im-

_^ . Autograph of Pedro de Candia.

portance m

the little Spanish force. The Greeks everywhere
were then regarded as a people adept in the still
m)rsterious weapons ; and all Europe had a respect
for those who had invented that wonderful agent
"Greek fire," which would bum under water, and
which no man now-a-days knows how to make.
The Greeks were generally known as "fire- workers,"
and were in great demand as masters of artillery.

De Candia went ashore with his armor and arque-
buse, both of which astounded the natives; and
when he set up a plank and shivered it with a ball,
they were overwhelmed at the strange noise and its
result. Candia brought back as glowing reports as
Molina had done ; and the tattered Spaniards began
to feel that at last their golden dreams were coming

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224 ^^^ SPANISH PIONEERS,

true, and took heart again. Pizarro gently declined
the gifts of gold and silver and pearls which the awe-
struck natives offered, and turned his face again to
the south, sailing as far as about the ninth degree
of south latitude. Then, feeling that he had seen
enough to warrant going back for reinforcements,
he stood about for Panama. Alonso de Molina and
one companion were left in Tumbez at their own re-
quest, being much in love with the country. Pizarro
took back in their places two Indian youth, to learn
the Spanish language. One of them, who was given
the name of Felipillo (little Philip) afterward cut
an important and discreditable figure. The voyagers
stopped at the Isle of Gorgona for their two coun-
trymen who had been left there sick. One was dead,
but the other gladly rejoined his compassionate com-
rades. And so, with his dozen men, Pizarro came
back to Panama after an absence of eighteen months,
into which had been crowded the sufferings and
horrors of a lifetime.

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GAINING GROUND. 325

III.

GAINING GROUND.

GOVERNOR DE LOS RIOS was not impressed
by the heroism of the little party, and refused
them aid. The case seemed hopeless; but the
leader was not to be crushed. He decided to go
to Spain in person, and appeal to his king. It was
one of his most remarkable undertakings, it seems
to me. For this man, whose boyhood had been
passed with swine, and who in manhood had been
herding rude men far more dangerous, who was
ignorant of books and unversed in courts, to present
himself confidently yet modestly at the dazzling and
punctilious court of Spain, showed another side of
his high courage. It was very much as if a London
chimney-sweep were to go to-morrow to ask audi-
ence and favors of Queen Victoria.

But Pizarro was equal to this, as to all the other
crises of his life, and acquitted himself as gallantly.
He was still tattered and penniless, but De Luque
collected for him fifteen hundred ducats ; and in the
spring of 1528 Pizarro sailed for Spain. He took
with him Pedro de Candia and some Peruvians, with
some llamas, some beautifully-woven Indian cloths,
and a few trinkets and vessels of gold and silver, to

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226 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

corroborate his story. He reached Seville in the
summer, and was at once thrown into jail by Enciso
under the cruel old law, long prevalent in all civilized
countries, allowing imprisonment for debt. His
story soon got abroad, and he was released by order
of the Crown and summoned to court.. Standing
before the brilliant Charles V., the unlettered soldier
told his story so modestly, so manfully, so clearly,
that Charles shed tears at the recital of such
awful sufferings, and warmed to such heroic stead-
fastness.

The king was just about to embark for Italy on an
important mission ; but his heart was won, and he
left Pizarro to the Council of the Indies with recom-
mendation to help the enterprise. That wise but
ponderous body moved slowly, as men learned only
in books and theories are apt to move ; and delay
was dangerous. At last the queen took up the
matter, and on the 26th of July, 1529, signed with
her own royal hand the precious document which
made possible one of the greatest conquests, and
one of the most gallant, in human history. America
owes a great deal to the brave queens of Spain as
well as to its kings. We remember what Isabella
had done for the discovery of the New World;
and now Charles's consort had as creditable a hand
in its most exciting chapter.

The capituiacion, or contract, in which two such
strangely different " parties " were set side by side —
one signing boldly Yo la Reina ("I the Queen"),
and the other following with " Francisco [X] Pizarro,

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GAINING GROUND, 227

his mark" — was the basis of Pizarro's fortunes.
The man who had been sneered at and neglected by
narrow minds that had constantly hindered his one
great hope, now had won the interest and support
of his sovereigns and their promise of a magnificent
reward, — of which latter we may be sure a man of
his calibre thought less than of the chance to realize
his dream of discovery. Followers he had to bait
with golden hopes ; and for that matter it was but
natural and right
that after more than
fifty years of pover-
ty and deprivation
he should also think ^
somewhat of com-
fort and wealth for '

,. ,^ _ Autograph of Francisco Pizarro.

himself. But no

man ever did or ever will do from mere sordidness
such a feat as Pizarro's. Such successes can be
won only by higher minds with higher aims; and
it is certain that Pizarro's chief ambition was for a
nobler and more enduring thing than gold.

The contract with the Crown gave to Francisco
Pizarro the right to find and make a Spanish empire
of the country of New Castile, which was the name
given to Peru. He had leave " to explore, conquer,
pacify, and colonize " the land from Santiago to a
point two hundred leagues south ; and of this vast
and unknown new province he was to be governor
and captain-general, — the highest military rank.
He was also to bear the titles of adelantado and

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228 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

alguacil-mayor for life, with a salary of seven hundred
and twenty-five thousand tnaravedis (about 1^2,000)
a year. Almagro was to be commander of Tum-
bez, with an annual rental of three hundred thou-
sand tnaravedis and the rank of hidalgo. Good
Father Luque was made Bishop of Tumbez and
Protector of the Indians, with one thousand ducats
a year. Ruiz was made Grand Pilot of the South
Seas ; Candia, commander of the artillery ; and the
eleven others who had stood so bravely by Pizarro
on the lonely isle were all made hidalgos.

In return, Pizarro was required to pledge himself
to observe the noble Spanish laws for the government,
protection, and education of the Indians, and to take
with him priests expressly to convert the savages to
Christianity. He was also to raise a force of two
hundred and fifty men in six months, and equip
them well, the Crown giving a little help ; and within
six months after reaching Panama, he must get his
expedition started for Peru. He was also invested
with the Order of Santiago ; and thus suddenly raised
to the proud knighthood of Spain he was allowed
to add the royal arms to those of the Pizarros, with
other emblems commemorative of his exploits, — an
Indian town, with a vessel in the bay, and the little
camel of Peru. This was a startling and significant
array of honors, hard to be comprehended by those
used only to republican institutions. It swept away
forever the disgrace of Pizarro's birth, and gave
him an unsullied place among the noblest. It is
doubly important in that it shows that the Span^

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GAINING GROUND. 339

ish Crown thus recognized the rank of Pizarro
in American conquest. Cortez never earned and
never received such distinction.

This division of the honors led to very serious
trouble. Almagro never forgave Pizarro for coming
out a greater man than he, and charged him with
selfishly and treacherously seeking the best for him-
self. Some historians have sided with Almagro;
but we have every reason to believe that Pizarro
acted straightforwardly and with truth. As he ex-
plained, he made every effort to induce the Crown
to give equal honors to Almagro; but the Crown
refused. Pizarro's word aside, it was merely po-
litical common-sense for the Crown to refuse such
a request. Two leaders anywhere are a danger;
and Spain already had had too bitter experience
with this same thing in America to care to
repeat it. It was willing to give all honor and
encouragement to the arms; but there must be
only one head, and that head, of course, could
be none but Pizarro. And certainly any one who
looks at the mental and moral difference between
the two men, and what were their actions and
results both before and after the royal grant, will
concede that the Spanish Crown made a most
liberal estimate for Almagro, and gave him certainly
quite as much as he was worth. In the whole con-
tract there is circumstantial evidence that Pizarro
did his best in behalf of his associate, — the ungrate-
ful and afterward traitorous Almagro, — an evidence
mightily corroborated by Pizarro's long patience and

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230 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

clemency toward his vulgar, ignoble, and constantly
deteriorating comrade. Pizarro had the head that
fate could not turn. He was neither crushed by
adversity, nor, rarer yet, spoiled by the most dazzling
success, — wherein he rose superior to the greater
genius, but less noble man, Napoleon. When raised
from lifelong, abject poverty to the highest pinnacle
of wealth and fame, Pizarro remained the same
quiet, modest. God-fearing and Qod-thanking, pru-
dent, heroic man. Success only intensified Almagro's
base nature, and his end was ignominious.

Having secured his contract with the Crown,
Pizarro felt a longing to see the scenes of his boy-
hood. Unhappy as they had been, there was a
manly satisfaction in going back to look upon these
places. So the ragged boy who had left his pigs at
Truxillo, came back now a knighted hero with gray
hair and undying fame. I do not believe it was for
the sake of vain display before those who might
remember him. That was nowhere in the nature
of Pizarro. He never exhibited vanity or pride.
He was of the same broad, modest, noble gauge
as gallant Crook, the greatest and best of our
Indian conquerors, who was never so content as
when he could move about among his troops with-
out a mark in dress or manner to show that he was
a major-general of the United States army rather
than some poor scout or hunter. No ; it was the
man in him that took Pizarro back to Truxillo, — or
perhaps a touch of the boy that is always left in such
great hearts. Of course the people were glad to

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GAINING GROUND, 231

honor the hero of such a fairy tale as his sober story
makes ; but I am sure that the brilliant general was
glad to escape sometimes from the visitors^ and get
out among the hillsides where he had driven his
pigs so many years before, and see the same
old trees and brooklets, and even, no doubt, the
same ragged, ignorant boy still herding the noisy
porkers. He might well have pinched himself to
see if he were really awake ; whether that were not
the real Francisco Pizarro over yonder, still in his
rags tending the same old swine, and this gray,
famous, travelled, honored knight only a dream like
the years between them. And he was the very man
who, finding himself awake, would have gone over
to the ragged herder and sat down beside him upon
the sward with a gentle Como io va, amigo 9 — " How
goes- it, friend?" And when the wondering and
frightened lad stammered or tried to run away from
the first great personage that had ever spoken to
him, Pizarro would talk so kindly and of such won-
derful things that the poor herder would look upon
him with that hero-worship which is one of the
purest and most helpful impulses in all our nature,
and wonder if he too might not sometime be some-
what like this splendid, quiet man who said, " Yes,
my boy, I used to herd pigs right here." The more
I think of it, from what we know of Pizarro, the surer
I am that he really did look up the old pastures and
the swine and their ignorant keepers, and talked with
them simply and gently, and left in them the resolve
to try for better things.

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232 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

But the interest which everywhere centred upon
Pizarro did not bring in recruits to his banner as
^t as could be desired. Most people would much
rather admire the hero than become heroes at the
cost of similar suffering. Among those who joined
him were his brothers, Hernando, Gonzalo, and Juan,

who were to figure promi-

rj^e/^ 71 0i,r^ JL nently in the New World,

j^vt-C /]^ 1/ / \\ thnngrVi until now they

/ r yf had never been heard of.

/ / Hernando, the eldest of

Autc^ph of Hernando Pizano. ^^ brothers, WaS the Only

legitimate son, and was much better educated. But
he was also the worst ; and being without the strict
principles of Francisco made a sorry mark in the
end. Juan was a sympathetic figure, and distin-
guished himself by his great manliness and cour-
age before he came to an untimely end. Gonzalo
was a genuine knight-
errant, fearless, gen-
erous, and chivalric, ^
beloved alike in the ^V s^^ Kfrt
New World by the sol- • '

,, - , , , , Autograph of Juan Pizarro.

diers he led and the

Indians he conquered. He made one of the most
incredible marches in all history, and would have won
a great name, probably, had not the death of his
guide-brother Francisco thrown him into the power
of evil counsellors like the scoundrel Carabajal and
others, who led and pushed him to ruin. But while
none of the brothers were wicked men, nor cow-

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GAINING GROUND. 233

ardsy nor fools, there was none like Francisco. He
was one of the rare types of whom but a few have
been scattered, far apart, up and down the world's
path. He had not only the qualities which make
heroes and which are very common, fortunately for
us, but with them the insight and the unfaltering
aim of genius. Less than Napoleon in insight,
because less learned, fully as great in resolve and
greater in principle, he was one of the prominent
men of all time.

But the six months were up, and he still lacked
something of the necessary two hundred and fifty
recruits. The Council was about to inspect his
expedition, and Pizarro, fearing that the strict letter
of the law might now prevent the consummation of
his great plans just for the want of a few men, and
growing desperate at the thought of further delay,
waited no longer for official leave, but slipped his
cable and put to sea secretly in January, 1530. It
was not exactly the handsomest course to take, but
he felt that too much was at stake to be risked on
a mere technicality, and that he was keeping the
spirit if not the letter of the law. The Crown evi-
dently looked upon the matter in the same light, for
he was neither brought back nor punished. After a
tedious voyage he got safely to Santa Marta. Here
his new soldiers were aghast at hearing of the great
snakes and alligators to be encountered, and a con-
siderable number of the weaker spirits deserted.
Almagro, too, began an uproar, declaring that
Pizarro had robbed him of his rightful honors ; but

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234 ^^^ SPANISH PIONEERS.

De Luqae and Espinosa pacified the quarrel, helped
by the generous spirit of Pizarro. He agreed to
make Almagro the adelantado, and to ask the Crown
to confirm the appointment. He also promised to
provide for him before he did for his own brothers.

Early in January, 15 31, Francisco Pizarro sailed
fi'om Panama on his third and last voyage to the
south. He had in his three vessels one hundred
and eighty men and twenty-seven horses. That
was not an imposing army, truly, to explore and
conquer a great country ; but it was all he could get,
and Pizarro was bound to try. He made the real
conquest of Peru with a handful of rough heroes;
indeed, he would certainly have tried, and very
possibly would have succeeded in the vast under-
taking, if he had had but fifty soldiers ; for it was
very much more the one man who conquered Peru
than his one hundred and eighty followers. Almagro
was again left behind at Panama to try to drum up
recruits.

Pizarro intended to sail straight to Tumbez, and
there effect his landing ; but storms beat back the
weak ships, so that he was obliged to change his
plan. After thirteen days he landed in the Bay of
San Mateo (St. Matthew), and led his men by land,
while the vessels coasted along southward. It was
an enormously difficult tramp on that inhospitable
shore, and the men could scarcely stagger on. But
Pizarro acted as guide, and cheered them up by
words and example. It was the old story with him.
Everywhere he had fairly to carry his company.

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GAINING GROUND. 2ZS

Their legs no doubt were as strong as his, though
he must have had a very wonderful constitution;
but there is a mental muscle which is harder and
more enduring, and has held up many a tottering
body, — the muscle of pluck. And that pluck of
Pizarro was never surpassed on earth. You might
almost say it had to carry his army pick-a-back.

Wild as the region was, it had some mineral wealth.
Pizarro collected (so Pedro Pizarro ^ says) two hun-
dred thousand caste llanos (each weighing a dollar)
of gold. This he sent back to Panama by his vessels
to speak for him. // was the kind of argument the
rude adventurers on the Isthmus could understand,
and he trusted to its yellow logic to bring him re-
cruits. But while the vessels had gone on this
important errand, the little army, trudging down
the coast, was suffering greatly. The deep sands,
the tropic heat, the weight of their arms and armor
were almost unendurable. A strange and horrible
pestilence broke out, and many perished. The
country grew more forbidding, and again the suffer-
ing soldiers lost hope. At Puerto Viejo they were
joined by thirty men under Sebastian de Belalcazar,
who afterward distinguished himself in a brave
chase of that golden butterfly which so many pur-
sued to their death, and none ever captured, — the
myth of the Dorado.

Pushing on, Pizarro finally crossed to the island
of Puni, to rest his gaunt men, and get them in

^ A Spanish historian of the sixteenth century, a relative
of Francisco Pizarro.

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236 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

trim for the conquest. The Indians of the island
attempted treachery; and when their ringleaders
were captured and punished, the whole swarm of
savages fell desperately on the Spanish camp. It
was a most unequal contest; but at last courage
and discipline prevailed over mere brute force,
and the Indians were routed. Many Spaniards
were wounded, and among them Hernando Pizarro,
who got an ugly javelin-wound in the leg. But the
Indians gave them no rest, and were constantly
harassing them, cutting off stragglers, and keeping
the camp in endless alarm. Then fortunately came
a reinforcement of one hundred men with a few
horses, under command of Hernando de Soto, the
heroic but unfortunate man who later explored the
Mississippi.

Thus strengthened, Pizarro crossed back to the
mainland on rafts. The Indians disputed his
passage, killed three men on one raft, and cut
off another raft, whose soldiers were overpowered.
Hernando Pizarro had already landed ; and though
a dangerous mud-flat lay between, he spurred his
floundering horse through belly-deep mire, with a
few companions, and rescued the imperilled men.

Entering Tumbez, the Spaniards found the pretty
town stripped and deserted. Alonso de Molina and
his companion had disappeared, and their fate was
never learned. Pizarro left a ^mall force there, and
in May, 1532, marched inland, sending De Soto
with a small detachment to scout the base of the
giant Andes. From his very first landing, Pizarro

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GAINING GROUND. 237

enforced the strictest discipline. His soldiers must
treat the Indians well, under the severest penalties.
They must not even enter an Indian dwelling ; and
if they dared disobey this command they were
sternly punished. It was a liberal and gentle policy
toward the Indians which Pizarro adopted at the
very start, and maintained inflexibly.

After three or four weeks spent in exploring,
Pizarro picked out a site in the valley of Tangara,
and founded there the town of San Miguel (St.
Michael). He built a church, storehouse, hall of
justice, fort and dwellings, and organized a govern-
ment. The gold they had collected he sent back
to Panama, and waited several weeks hoping for
recruits. But none came, and it was evident that
he must give up the conquest of Peru, or undertake
it with the handful of men he already had. It did
not take a Pizarro long to choose between such
alternatives. Leaving fifty soldiers under Antonio
Navarro to garrison San Miguel, and with strict laws
for the protection of the Indians, Pizarro marched
Sept. 24, 1532, toward the vast and unknown
interior.

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338 THB SPANISH PIONEERS,

IV.

PERU AS IT WAS.

NOW that we have followed Pizarro to Peru, and
he is about to conquer the wonderful land to
find which he has gone through such unparalleled
discouragements and sufferings, we must stop for a
moment to get an understanding of the country.
This is the more necessary because such false and
foolish tales of "the Empire of Peru" and "the
reign of the Incas/' and all that sort of trash, have
been so widely circulated. To comprehend the Con-
quest at all, we must understand what there was to
conquer ; and that makes it necessary that I should
sketch in a few words the picture of Peru that was so
long accepted on the authority of grotesquely mis-
taken historians, and also Peru as it really was, and
as more scholarly history has fully proved it to have
been.

We were told that Peru was a great, rich, populous,
civilized empire, ruled by a long line of kings who
were called Incas ; that it had dynasties and noble-
men, throne and crown and court; that its kings
conquered vast territories, and civilized their con-
quered savage neighbors by wonderful laws and
schools and other tools of the highest political

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PBRU AS IT WAS.

«39

economy; that they had military roads finer than
those built by the Romans, and a thousand miles in
length, with wonderful pavement and bridges ; that
this wonderful race believed in one Supreme Being ;
that the king and all of the royal blood were immeas-
urably above the common people, but mild, just,
paternal, and enlightened; that there were royal
palaces everywhere; that they had canals four
or five hundred miles long, and county fairs, and
theatrical representations of tragedy and comedy;
that they carved emeralds with bronze tools the
making of which is now a lost art ; that the govern-
ment took the census, and had the pppulace edu-
cated ; and that while the policy of the remarkable
aborigines of Mexico was the policy of hate, that of
the Inca kings was the policy of love and mildness.
Above all, we were told much of the long line of
Inca monarchs, the royal family, whose last great
king, Huayna Capac, had died not a great while be-
fore the coming of the Spaniards. He was repre-
sented as dividing the throne between his sons Ata-
hualpa and Huascar, who soon quarrelled and began
a wicked and merciless fratricidal war with armies
and other civilized arrangements. Then, we were
told, came Pizarro and took advantage of this un-
fratemal war, arrayed one brother against the other,
and thus was enabled at last to conquer the empire.
All this, with a thousand other things as ridiculous,
as untrue, and as impossible, is part of one of the
most fascinating but misleading historical romances
ever written. It never could have been written if

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240 THB SPANISH PIONEERS.

the beautiful and accurate science of ethnology had
then been known. The whole idea of Peru so long
prevalent was based upon utter ignorance of the
country, and, above all, of Indians everywhere. For
you must remember that these wonderful beings,
whose pictured government puts to shame any civil-
ized nation now on earth, were nothing but Indians,
I do not mean that Indians are not men, with all the
emotions and feelings and rights of men, — rights
which I only wish we had protected with as honor-
able care as Spain did. But the North and South
American Indians are very like each other in their
social, religious, and political organization, and very
unlike us. The Peruvians had indeed advanced
somewhat further than any other Indians in America,
but they were still Indians. They had no adequate
idea of a Supreme Being, but worshipped a bewil-
dering multitude of gods and idols. There was
no king, no throne, no dynasty, no royal blood,
nor anything else royal. Anything of that sort was
even more impossible among the Indians than it
would be now in our own republic. There was
not, and could not be, even a nation. Indian life is
essentially tribal. Not only can there be no king
nor anything resembling a king, but there is no such
thing as heredity, — except as something to be
guarded against. The chief (and there cannot be
even one supreme chief) cannot hand down his
authority to his son, nor to any one else. The suc-
cessor is elected by the council of officials who have
such things in charge. Where there are no kings

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PERU AS IT WAS, 241

there can be no palaces, — and there were neither
in Peru. As for fairs and schools and all those
things, they were as untrue as impossible. There
was no court, nor crown, nor nobility, nor census, nor
theatres, nor anything remotely suggesting any of
them ; and as for the Incas, they were not kings nor
even rulers, but a tribe of Indians, They were the
only Indians in the Americas who had the smelter ;
and that enabled them to make rude gold and silver
ornaments and images; so their country was the
richest in the New World, and they certainly had a
remarkable though barbaric splendor. The temples
of their blind gods were bright with gold, and the
Indians wore precious metals in profusion, just as our
own Navajos and Pueblos in New Mexico and Ari-
zona wear pounds and pounds of silver ornaments
to-day. They made bronze tools too, some of which
had a very good temper ; but it was not an art, only
an accident. Two of those tools were never found
of the same alloy ; the Indian smith simply guessed
at it, and had to throw away many a tool for every
one he accidentally made.

The Incas were one of the Peruvian tribes, at
first weak and sadly mauled about by their neigh-
bors. At last, driven from their old home, they
stumbled upon a valley which was a natural fortress.
Here they built their town of Cuzco, — for they
built towns as did our Pueblos, but better. Then
when they had fortified the two or three passes
by which alone that pocket in the Andes can be
reached, they were safe. Their neighbors could
16

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242 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

no longer get in to kill and rob them. In time
they grew to be numerous and confident, and like
all other Indians (and some white peoples) at once
began to sally out to kill and rob their neighbors.
In this they succeeded very well, because they had
a safe place to retreat to ; and, above all, because
they had their little camels, and could carry food
enough to be gone long from home. They had do-
mesticated the llama, which none of the neighbor
tribes, except the Aymaros, had done ; and this gave
the Incas an enormous advantage. They could
steal out from their safe valley in a large force, with
provisions for a month or more, and surprise some
village. If they were beaten off, they merely
skulked in the mountains, living by their pack-train,
constantly harassing and cutting off the villagers
until the latter were simply worn out. We see
what the little camel did for the Incas : it enabled
them to make war in a manner no other Indians in
America had then ever used. With this advantage
and in this manner this warrior tribe had made what
might be called a ^' conquest '' over an enormous
country. The tribes found it cheaper at last to yield,
and pay the Incas to let them alone. The robbers
built storehouses in each place, and put there an
official to receive the tribute exacted from the con-
quered tribe. These tribes were never assimilated.
They could not enter Cuzco, nor did Incas come to
live among them. It was not a nation, but a coun-
try of Indian tribes held down together by fear of
the one stronger tribe.

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PERU AS IT WAS. 243

The organization of the Incas was, broadly speak-
ing, the same as that of any other Indian tribe.
The most prominent official in such a tribe of land-
pirates was naturally the official who had charge of
the business of fighting, — the war-captain. He was
the commander in war ; but in the other branches
of government he was far from being the only or the
highest man ! And that is simply what Huayna Capac.
and all the other fabulous Inca kings were, — Indian
war-captains of the same influence as several Indian
war-captains I know in New Mexico.

Huayna Capac's sons were also Indian war-cap-
tains, and nothing more, — moreover, war-captains
of difTerent tribes, rivals and enemies. Atahualpa
moved down from Quito with his savage warriors,
and had several fights, and finally captured Huascar
and shut him up in the Indian fort at Xauxa.^

That was the state of things when Pizarro began
his march inland ; and lest you should be misled
by assertions that the condition of things in Peru
was differently stated by the Spanish historians, it is
needful to say one thing more. The Spanish chroni-
clers were not liars nor blunderers, — any more than
our own later pioneers who wrote gravely of the
Indian H^ing Philip, and the Indian Jibing Powhatan,
and the Indian Princess Pocahontas. Ethnology
was an unknown science then. None of those old
writers comprehended the characteristic Indian or-
ganization. They saw an ignorant, naked, supersti-
tious man who commanded his ignorant followers ;
^ Pronounced S6w-fta.

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244

THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

he was a person in authority, and they called him a
king because they did not know what else to call him.
The Spaniards did the same thing. All the world
in those days had but one little foot-rule where-
with to measure governments or organizations;
and ridiculous as some of their measurements seem
now, no one then could do better. No ; the mis-
takes of the Spanish chroniclers were as honest and
as ignorant as those which Prescott made three cen-
turies later, and by no means so absurd.

Peru, however, was a very wonderful country to
have been built up by simple Indians, without even
that national organization or spirit which is the first
step toward a nation. Its " cities " were substantial,
and in their construction had considerable claim to
skill; the farms were better than those of our
Pueblos, because they had indigenous there the
potato and other plant-foods unknown then in our
southwest, and were watered by the same system of
irrigation common to all the sedentary tribes. They
were the only shepherd Indians, and their great
flocks of llamas were a very considerable source of
wealth; while the camePs-hair cloths of their own
weaving were not disdained by the proud ladies of
Spain. And above all, their rude ovens for melting
metal enabled them to supply a certain dazzling dis-
play, which was certainly not to be expected among
American Indians : indeed, it would surprise us to
enter churches anywhere and And them so bright
with golden plates and images and dados as were
some of their barbaric temples. We cannot say

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PERU AS IT IVAS. 245

that they never made human sacrifices; but these
hideous rites were rare, and not to be compared with
the daily horrors in Mexico. For ordinary sacrifices,
the llama was the victim.

It was into the strongholds of this piratical but
uncommon Indian tribe that Pizarro was now lead-
ing his httle band.

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346 THB SPANISH PIONEERS.

THE CONQUEST OF PERU.

CERTAINLY no army ever marched in the face
of more hopeless odds. Against the count-
less thousands of the Peruvians, Pizarro had one hun-
dred and seventy-seven men. Only sixty-seven of
these had horses. In the whole command there were
but three guns ; and only twenty men had even cross-
bows ; all the others were armed with sword, dagger,
and lance. A pretty array, truly, to conquer what
was an empire in size though not in organization !

Five days out from San Miguel, Pizarro paused
to rest. Here he noticed that the seeds of discon-
tent were among his followers ; and he adopted a
remedy characteristic of the man. Drawing up his
company, he addressed them in friendly fashion. He
said he wished San Miguel might be better guarded ;
its garrison was very small. If there were any now
who would rather not proceed to the unknown dan-
gers of the interior, they were at perfect Hberty to
return and help guard San Miguel, where they should
have the same grants of land as the others, besides
sharing in the final profits of the conquest.

It was an audacious yet a wise step. Four foot-
soldiers and five cavalr3rmen said they believed they^

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THE CONQUEST OP. PERU 247

would go back to San Miguel ; and back they went,
while the loyal one hundred and sixty-eight pressed
on, pledged anew to follow their intrepid leader to
the end.

De Soto, who had been out on a scout for eight
days, now returned, accompanied by a messenger
from the Inca war-captain, Atahualpa. The Indian
brought gifts, and invited them to visit Atahualpa,
who was now encamped with his braves at Caxa-
marca.^ Felipillo, the young Indian from Tumbez,
who had gone back to Spain with Pizarro and had
learned Spanish, now made a very useful interpreter ;
and through him the Spaniards were able to converse
with the Inca Indians. Pizarro treated the mes-
senger with his usual courtesy, and sent him home
with gifts, and marched on up the hills in the direc-
tion of Caxamarca. One of the Indians declared
that Atahualpa was simply decoying the Spaniards
into his stronghold to destroy them without the
trouble of going after them, which was quite true ;
and another Indian declared that the Inca war-
captain had with him a force of at least fifty thou-
sand men. But without faltering, Pizarro sent an
Indian ahead to reconnoitre, and pushed on through
the fearful mountain passes of the Cordillera, cheering
his men with one of his characteristic speeches : —

" Let all take heart and courage to do as I expect of
you, and as good Spaniards are wont to do. And do
not be alarmed by the multitude the enemy is said to
have, nor by the small number of us Christians. For

^ Prononnced Cash-a-m^^r-ca.

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248 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

even if we were fewer and the opposing army greater,
the help of God is much greater yet; and in the utmost
need He aids and favors His own to disconcert and
humble the pride of the infidels, and bring them to the
knowledge of our holy faith."

To this knightly speech^ the men shouted that
they would follow wherever he led. Pizarro went
ahead with forty horsemen and sixty infantry, leaving
his brother Hernando to halt with the remaining
men until further orders. It was no child's play,
climbing those awful paths. The horsemen had to
dismount, and even then could hardly lead their
horses up the heights. The narrow trails wound
under hanging cliffs and along the brinks of gloomy
quebradas^ — narrow clefts, thousands of feet deep,
where the rocky shelf was barely wide enough to
creep along. The pass was commanded by two
remarkable stone forts; but luckily these were
deserted. Had an enemy occupied them, the Span-
iards would have been lost; but Atahualpa was
letting them walk into his trap, confident of crush-
ing them there at his ease. At the top of the pass
Hernando and his men were sent for, and came
up. A messenger from Atahualpa now arrived with
a present of llamas ; and at about the same time
Pizarro's Indian spy returned, and reiterated that
Atahualpa meant treachery. The Peruvian mes-
senger plausibly explained the suspicious movements
related by the spy. His explanation was far from
satisfactory ; but Pizarro was too wise to show his

^ Pronounced kay-^r^i-das.

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THE CONQUEST OF PERU, 249

distrust. Nothing but a confident front could save
them now.

The Spaniards suffered much from cold in cross-
ing that lofty upland ; and even the descent on the
east side of the Cordillera was full of difficulty. On
the seventh day they came in sight of Caxamarca in
its pretty oval valley, — a pocket of the great range.
Off to one side was the camp of the Inca war-captain
and his army, covering a great area. On the 15 th
of November, 1532, the Spaniards entered the town.
It was absolutely deserted, — a serious and danger-
ous omen. Pizarro halted in the great square or
common, and sent De Soto and Hernando Pizarro
with thirty-five cavalry to Atahualpa's camp to ask an
interview. They found the Indian surrounded by a
luxury which startled them ; and the overwhelming
number of warriors impressed them no less. To
their request Atahualpa replied that to-day he was
keeping a sacred fast (itself a highly suspicious
fact), but to-morrow he would visit the Spaniards
in the town. " Take the houses on the square," he
said, " and enter no others. They are for the use
of all. When I come, I will give orders what shall
be done."

The Peruvians, who had never seen a horse before,
were astounded at these mounted strangers, and
doubly charmed when De Soto, who was a gallant
horseman, displayed his prowess, — not for vanity ; it
was a matter of very serious importance to impress
these outnumbering barbarians with the dangerous
abilities of the strangers.

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250 THE SPANISH PIONBBRS,

The events of the next day deserve special atten-
tion, as they and their direct consequences have been
the basis of the unjust i^harge that Pizarro was a cruel
man. The real facts are his full justification.

On the morning of November 16, after an anxious
nighty the Spaniards were up with the first gray
dawn. It was plain now that they had walked right
into the trap ; and the chances were a hundred to
one that they would never get out. Their Indian
spy had warned them truly. Here they were
cooped up in the town^ one hundred and sixty-eight
of them ; and within easy distance were the un-
numbered thousands of the Indians. Worse yet,
they saw their retreat cut off; for in the night
Atahualpa had thrown a large force between them
and the pass by which they had entered. Their
case was absolutely hopeless, — nothing but a
miracle could save them. But their miracle was
ready, — it was Pizarro.

It is by one of the finest provisions of Nature that
the right sort of minds think best and swiftest when
there is most need for them to think quickly and
well. In the supreme moment all the crowding,
jumbled thoughts of the full brain seem to be sud-
denly swept aside, to leave a clear space down
which the one great thought may leap forward like
the runner to his goal, — or like the lightning which
splits the slow, tame air asunder even as its fire
dashes on its way. Most intelligent persons have
that mental lightning sometimes ; and when it can
be relied on to come and instantly illumine the

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THB CONQUEST OP PMRU. 251

darkest crisis^ it is the insight of genius. It was
that which made Napoleon, Napoleon ; and made
Pizarro, Pizarro.

There was need of some wonderfully rapid, some
almost superhuman thinking. What could over-
come those frightful odds ? Ah ! Pizarro had it !
He did not know, as we know now, what super-
stitious reasons made the Indians revere Atahualpa
so; but he did know that the influence existed.
Somewhat as Pizarro was to the Spaniards, was their
war-captain to the Peruvians, — not only their
military head, but literally equal to " a host in him-
self." Very well ! If he could capture this treach-
erous chieftain, it would reduce the odds greatly ;
indeed, it would be the bloodless equivalent of
depriving the hostile force of several thousand
men. Besides, Atahualpa would be a pledge for
the peace of his people. And as the only way
out of destruction, Pizarro determined to capture
the war-captain.

For this brilliant strategy he at once made care-
'^ ful preparations. The cavalry, in two divisions

]^ commanded respectively by Hernando de Soto and

^ft Hernando Pizarro, was hidden in two great hallways

i^ which opened into the square. In a third hallway

^ were put the infantry ; and with twenty men Pizarro

took his position at a fourth commanding point.

\^^ Pedro de Candia, with the artillery, — two poor little

iis' falconets, — was stationed on the top of a strong

u^ building. Pizarro then made a devout address to

iti^ his soldiers; and with public prayers to God to

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252 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

aid and preserve them, the little force awaited its
enemy.

The day was nearly gone when Atahualpa entered
town, riding on a golden chair borne high on the
shoulders of his servants. He had promised to
come for a friendly visit, and unarmed ; but singu-
larly his friendly visit was made with a following
of several thousand athletic warriors ! Ostensibly
they were unarmed ; but underneath their cloaks
they clutched bows and knives and war-clubs. Ata-
hualpa was certainly not above curiosity^ uncon-
cerned as he had seemed. This new sort of men
was too interesting to be exterminated at once. He
wished to see more of them, and so came, but per-
fectly confident, as a cruel boy might be with a fly.
He could watch its buzzings for a time ; and when-
ever he was tired of that, he had but to turn down
his thumb and crush the fly upon the pane. He*
reckoned too soon. A hundred and seventy Spanish
bodies might be easily crushed ; but not when they
were animated by one such mind as their leader's.

Even now Pizarro was ready to adopt peaceful
measures. Good Fray Vicente de Valverde, the
chaplain of the little army, stepped forth to meet
Atahualpa. It was a strange contrast, — the quiet,
gray-robed missionary, with his worn Bible in his
hand, facing the cunning Indian on his golden
throne, with golden ornaments and a necklace of
emeralds. Father Valverde spoke. He said they
came as servants of a mighty king and of the true
God. They came as friends ; and all they asked

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THE CONQUEST OF PERU, 253

was that the Indian chief should abandon his idols
and submit to God, and accept the king of Spain as
his ally, not as his sovereign.

Atahualpa, after looking curiously at the Bible
(for of course he had never seen a book before),
dropped it, and answered the missionary curtly and
almost insultingly. Father Valverde's exhortations
only angered the Indian, and his words and manner
grew more menacing. Atahualpa desired to see the
sword of one of the Spaniards, and it was shown
him. Then he wished to draw it ; but the soldier
wisely declined to allow him. Father Valverde did
not, as has been charged, then urge a massacre ;
he merely reported to Pizarro the failure of his con-
ciliatory efforts. The hour had come. Atahualpa
might now strike at any moment ; and if he struck
first, there was absolutely no hope for the Spaniards.
Their only salvation was in turning the tables, and
surprising the surprisers. Pizarro waved his scarf
to Candia ; and the ridiculous little cannon on the
housetop boomed across the square. It did not hit
anybody, and was not meant to ; it was merely to
terrify the Indians, who had never heard a gun, and
to give the signal to the Spaniards. The descriptions
of how the "smoke from the artillery rolled in
sulphurous volumes along the square, blinding the
Peruvians, and making a thick gloom," can best be
appreciated when we remember that all this deadly
cloud had to come from two little pop-cannon that
were carried over the mountains on horseback, and
three old flindock muskets ! Yet in such a ridicu-

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254 3r«fi SPANISH PIONEERS,

lous fashion have most of the events of the conquest
been written about.

Not less false and silly are current descriptions of
the '* massacre" which ensued. The Spaniards all
sallied out at the signal and fell upon the Indians,
and finally drove them from the square. We cannot
believe that two thousand were slain, when we con-
sider how many Indians one man would be capable
of killing with a sword or clubbed musket or cross-
bow in half an hour's running fight, and multiplying
that by one hundred and sixty-eight ; for after such
a computation we should believe, not that two thou-
sand, but two hundred is about the right figure for
those killed at Caxamarca.

The chief efforts of the Spaniards were necessa-
rily not to kill, but to drive off the other Indians and
capture Atahualpa. Pizarro had given stem orders
that the chief must not be hurt. He did not wish
to kill him, but to secure him alive as a hostage for
the peaceful conduct of his people. The body-
guard <Jf the war-captain made a stout resistance ;
and one excited Spaniard hurled a missile at Atahu-
alpa. Pizarro sprang forward and took the wound
in his own arm, saving the Indian chief. At last
Atahualpa was secured unhurt, and was placed in
one of the buildings under a strong guard. He
admitted — with the characteristic bravado of an
Indian, whose traditional habit it is to show his
courage by taunting his captors — that he had let
them come in, secure in his overwhelming numbers,
to make slaves of such as pleased him, and put the

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THE CONQUEST OF PERU, 255

Others to death. He might have added that had the
wily war-chief his father been alive, this never would
have happened. Experienced old Huayna Capac
would never have let the Spaniards enter the town,
but would have entangled and annihilated them in
the wild mountain passes. But Atahualpa, being
more conceited and less prudent, had taken a
needless risk, and now found himself a prisoner and
his army routed. The biter was bitten.

The distinguished captive was treated with the
utmost care and kindness. He was a prisoner only
in that he could not go out ; but in the spacious and
pleasant rooms assigned him he had every comfort.
His family lived with him ; his food, the best that
could be procured, he ate from his own dishes ; and
every wish was gratified except the one wish to get
out and rally his Indians for war. Father Valverde,
and Pizarro himself, labored earnestly to convert
Atahualpa to Christianity, explaining the worthless-
ness and wickedness of his idols, and the love of the
true God, — as well as they could to an Indian, to
whom, of course, a Christian God was incomprehen-
sible. The worthlessness of his own gods Atahualpa
was not slow to admit. He frankly declared that
they were nothing but liars. Huayna Capac had
consulted them, and they answered that he would
live a great while yet, — and Hua3aia Capac had
promptly died. Atahualpa himself had gone to ask
the oracle if he should attack the Spaniards : the
oracle had answered yes, and that he would easily
conquer them. No wonder the Inca war-chief had
lost confidence in the makers of such predictions.

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2 $6 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

The Spaniards gathered many Hamas, considerable
gold, and a large store of fine garments of cotton
and camePs-hair. They were no longer molested ;
for the Indians without their professional war-maker
were even more at a loss than a civilized army
would be without its officers, for the Indian leader
has a priestly as well as a military office, — and their
leader was a prisoner.

At last Atahualpa, anxious to get back to his forces
at any cost, made a proposition so startling that the
Spaniards could scarce believe their ears. If they
would set him free, he promised to fill the room
wherein he was a prisoner as high as he could reach
with gold, and a smaller room with silver ! The room
to be filled with golden vessels and trinkets (nothing
so compact as ingots) is said to have been twenty-
two feet long and seventeen wide ; and the mark he
indicated on the wall with his fingers was nine feet
from the fioor 1

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THE GOLDEN RANSOM. z^^j

VI.

THE GOLDEN RANSOM.

THERE js no reason whatever to doubt that
Pizarro accepted this proposition in perfect
good faith. The whole nature of the man, his reh-
gion, the laws of Spain, and the circumstantial evi-
dence of his habitual conduct lead us to believe
that he intended to set Atahualpa free when the
ransom should have been paid. But later circum-
stances; in which he had neither blame nor control,
simply forced him to a different course.

Atahualpa's messengers dispersed themselves
through Peru to gather the gold and silver for the
ransom. Meanwhile, Huascar, — who, you will re-
member, was a prisoner in the hands of Atahualpa's
men, — having heard of the arrangement, sent word
to the Spaniards setting forth his own claims. Pizarro
ordered that he should be brought to Caxamarca to
tell his story. The only way to learn which of the rival
war-captains was right in his claims was to bring them
together and weigh their respective pretensions. But
this by no mean suited Atahualpa. Before Huascar
could be brought to Caxamarca he was assassinated
by his Indian keepers, the henchmen of Atahualpa, —
and, it is commonly agreed, by Atahualpa's orders.
17

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258 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

The gold and silver for the ransom came in slowly.
Historically there is no doubt what was Atahualpa's
plan in the whole arrangement. He was merely
buying Hme^ — alluring the Spaniards to wait and
wait, until he could collect his forces to his rescue,
and then wipe out the invaders. This, indeed, began
to dawn on the Spaniards. Tempting as was the
golden bait, they suspected the trap behind it. It
was not long before their fears were confirmed. They
began to learn of the secret rallying of the Indian
forces. The news grew worse and worse \ and even
the daily arrival of gold — some days as high as
150,000 in weight — could not blind them to the
growing danger.

It was necessary to learn more of the situation
than they could know while shut up in Caxamarca ;
and Hernando Pizarro was sent out with a small
force to scout to Guamachdcho and thence to Pacha-
cdmac, three hundred miles. It was a difficult and
dangerous reconnoissance, but full of interest. Their
way along the table-land of the Cordillera was a toil-
some one. The story of great military roads is largely
a myth, though much had been done to improve
the trails, — a good deal after the rude fashion of
the Pueblos of New Mexico, but on a larger scale.
The improvements, however, had been only to
adapt the trails for the sure-footed llama ; and the
Spanish horses could with great difficulty be hauled
and pushed up the worst parts. Especially were
the Spaniards impressed with the rude but effective
swinging bridges of vines, with which the Indians

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THE GOLDEN RANSOM. 259

had spanned narrow but fearful chasms; yet even
these swaying paths were most difficult to be crossed
with horses.

After several weeks of severe travel, the party
reached Pachacdmac without opposition. The fa-
mous temple there had been stripped of its treasures,
but its famous god — an ugly idol of wood — re-
mained. The Spaniards dethroned and smashed
this pagan fetich, purified the temple, and set up
in it a large cross to dedicate it to God. They
explained to the natives, as best they could, the
nature of Christianity, and tried to induce them
to adopt it.

Here it was learned that Chalicuchima, one of
Atahualpa's subordinate war-captains, was at Xauxa
with a large force ; and Hernando decided to visit
him. The horses were in ill shape for so hard a
march ; for their shoes had been entirely worn out
in the tedious journey, and how to shoe them was
a puzzle: there was no iron in Peru. But Her-
nando met the difficulty with a startling expedient.
If there was no iron, there was plenty of silver;
and in a short time the Spanish horses were shod
with that precious metal, and ready for the march
to Xauxa. It was an arduous journey, but well
worth making. Chalicuchima voluntarily decided
to go with the Spaniards to Caxamarca to consult
with his superior, Atahualpa. Indeed, it was just
the chance he desired. A personal conference
would enable them to see exactly what was best to
be done to get rid of these mysterious strangers.

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26o THR SPANISH PIONBBRS.

So the adventurous Spaniards and the wily sub-chief
got back at last to Caxamarca together.

Meanwhile Atahualpa had fared very well at the
hands of his captors. Much as they had reason to
distrust, and did distrust, the treacherous Indian,
they treated him not only humanely but with the
utmost kindness. He lived in luxury with his family
and retainers, and was much associated with the
Spaniards. They seem to have been trying their ut-
most to make him their friend, — which was Pizar-
ro's principle all along. Prejudiced historians can
find no answer to one significant fact. The Indi-
ans came to regard Pizarro and his brothers Gonzalo
and Juan as their friends, — and an Indian, suspi-
cious and observant far beyond us, is one of the last
men in the world to be fooled in such things. Had
the Pizarros been the cruel, merciless men that
partisan and ill-informed writers have represented
them to be, the aborigines would have been the first
to see it and to hate them. The fact that the people
they conquered beqame their friends and admirers is
the best of testimony to their humanity and justice.

Atahualpa was even taught to play chess and
other European games; and besides these efforts
for his amusement, pains was also taken to give
him more and more understanding of Christianity.
Notwithstanding all this, his unfriendly plots were
continually going on.

In the latter part of May the three emissaries who
had been sent to Cuzco for a portion of the ransom
got back to Caxamarca with a great treasure. From

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THE GOLDEN EANSOM, a6l

the famous Temple of the Sun alone the Indians
had given them seven hundred golden plates ; and
that was only a part of the payment from Cuzco.
The messengers brought back two hundred loads
of gold and twenty-five of silver, each load being
carried on a sort of hand-barrow by four Indians.
This great contribution swelled the ransom per-
ceptibly, though the room was not yet nearly filled
to the mark agreed upon. Pizarro, however, was
not a Shylock. The ransom was not complete, but
it was enough; and he had his notary draw up
a document formally freeing Atahualpa from any
further payment, — in &ct, giving him a receipt in
full. But he felt obliged to delay setting the war-
captain at liberty. The murder of Huascar and
similar symptoms showed that it would be suicidal
to turn Atahualpa loose now. His intentions, though
masked, were fully suspected, and so Pizarro told
him that it would be necessary to keep him as a
hostage a little longer. Before it would be safe for
him to release Atahualpa he knew that he must have
a larger force to withstand the attack which Atahualpa
was sure at once to organize. He was rather better
acquainted with the Indian vindictiveness than some
of his closet critics are.

Meantime Almagro had at last got away from Pan-
ama with one hundred and fifty foot and fifty horse,
in three vessels; and landing in Peru, he reached
San Miguel in December, 1532. Here he heard
with astonishment of Pizarro's magical success, and
of the golden booty, and at once communicated
with him. At the same time his secretary secretly

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a62 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

forwarded a treacherous letter to Pizarro, trying to
arouse enmity and betray Almagro. The secretary
had gone to the wrong man, however, for Pizarro
spumed the contemptible offer. Indeed, his treat-
ment of his unadmirable associate from first to last
was more than just ; it was forbearing, friendly, and
magnanimous to a degree. He now sent Almagro
assurance of his friendship, and generously welcomed
him to share the golden field which had been won
with very little help from him. Almagro reached
Caxamarca in February, 1533, and was cordially
received by his old companion-in-arms.

The vast ransom — a treasure to which there is
no parallel in history — was now divided. This
division in itself was a labor involving no small
prudence and skill. The ransom was not in coin
or ingots, but in plates, vessels, images, and trinkets
varying greatly in weight and in purity. It had to
be reduced to something like a common standard.
Some of the most remarkable specimens were saved
to send to Spain ; the rest was melted down to in-
gots by the Indian smiths, who were busy a month
with the task. The result was almost fabulous.
There were 1,326,539 pesos de oro, commercially
worth, in those days, some five times their weight, —
that is, about ^(6,63 2,695. Besides this vast sum of
gold there were 51,610 marks of silver, equivalent
by the same standard tojti,i35,420 now.

The Spaniards were assembled in the public
square of Caxamarca. Pizarro prayed that God
would help him to divide the treasure justly, and the
apportionment began. First, a fifth of the whole

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THE GOLDEN RANSOM, 263

great golden heap was weighed out for the king of
Spain, as Pizarro had promised in the capitulacion.
Then the conquerors took their shares in the order
of their rank. Pizarro received 57,222 pesos de oroy
and 2,350 marks of silver, besides the golden chair
of Atahualpa, which weighed ^(25,000. Hernando
his brother got 31,080 pesos de oro, and 2,350 marks
of silver. De Soto had 17,749 pesos de oro, and
724 marks of silver. There were sixty cavalrymen,
and most of them received 8,880 pesos de oro, and
362 marks of silver. Of the one hundred and five
infantry, part got half as much as the cavalry each,
and part one fourth less. Nearly jt 100,000 worth
of gold was set aside to endow the first church
in Peru, — that of St. Francis. Shares were also
given Almagro and his followers, and the men who
had stayed behind at San Miguel. That Pizarro suc-
ceeded in making an equitable division is best evi-
denced by the absence of any complaints, — and
his associates were not in the habit of keeping quiet
under even a fancied injustice. Even his defamers
have never been able to impute dishonesty to the
gallant conqueror of Peru.

To put in more graphic shape the results of this
dazzling windfall, we may tabulate the list, giving
each share in its value in dollars to-day : —

To the Spanish Crown 31,553,623

" Francisco Pizarro 462,810

" Hernando Pizarro 207,100

" De Soto 104,628

" each cavalryman 52,364

** each infantryman 26,182

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364 3r«K SPANISH PIONBBRS.

All this was besides the fortunes given Almagro
and his men and the church.

This is the nearest statement that can be made
of the value of the treasure. The study of the enor-
mously complicated and varying currency values of
those days is in itself the work for a whole lifetime ;
but the above figures are practically correct. Pres-
cott's estimate that the peso de oro was worth eleven
dollars at that time is entirely unfounded; it was
close to five dollars. The mark of silver is much
more difficult to determine, and Prescott does not
attempt it at all. The mark was not a coin, but a
weight ; and its commercial value was about twenty-
two dollars at that time.

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ATAHUALPA'S TREACHERY. 265

VII.

ATAHUALPA'S TREACHERY AND DEATH.

BUT in the midst of their happiness at this
realization of their golden dreams, — and we
may half imagine how they felt, after a life of pov-
erty and great suffering, at now finding themselves
rich men, — the Spaniards were rudely interrupted
by less pleasant realities. The plots of the Indians,
always suspected, now seemed unmistakable. News
of an uprising came in from every hand. It was
reported that two hundred thousand warriors from
Quito and thirty thousand of the cannibal Caribs
were on their way to fall upon the little Spanish
force. Such rumors are always exaggerated; but
this was probably founded on fact. Nothing else
was to be expected by any one even half so familiar
with the Indian character as the Spaniards were.
At all events, our judgment of what followed must be
guided not merely by what was true, but even more
by what the Spaniards believed to be true. They
had reason to believe, and there can be no ques-
tion whatever that they did believe, that Atahualpa's
machinations were bringing a vastly superior force
down upon them, and that they were in imminent
peril of their Uves. Their newly acquired wealth

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266 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

only made them the more nervous. It is a curious
but common phase of human nature that we do not
realize half so much the many hidden dangers to
our lives until we have acquired something which
makes life seem better worth the living. One may
often see how a fearless man suddenly becomes cau-
tious, and even laughably fearful, when he gets a
dear wife or child to think of and protect ; and I
doubt if any stirring boy has come to twenty years
without suddenly being reminded, by the posses-
sion of some little treasure, how many things might
happen to rob him of the chance to enjoy it. He
sees and feels dangers that he had never thought
of before.

The Spaniards certainly had cause enough to be
alarmed for their lives, without any other consid-
eration; but the sudden treasure which gave those
lives such promise of new and hard-earned bright-
ness undoubtedly made their apprehensions more
acute, and spurred them to more desperate efforts
to escape.

There is not the remotest evidence of any
sort that Pizarro ever meditated any treachery to
Atahualpa; and there is very strong circumstantial
evidence to the contrary. But now his followers
began to demand what seemed necessary for their
protection. Atahualpa, they believed, had betrayed
them. He had caused the murder of his brother
Huascar, who was disposed to make friends with them,
for the sake of being put by this alliance above the
power of his merciless rival. He had baited them

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ATAHUALPA'S TREACHERY, 267

with a golden ransom, and by delaying it had gained
time to have his forces organized to crush the Span-
iards, — and now they demanded that he must not
only be punished, but be put past further plotting.
Their logic was unanswerable by any one in the same
circumstances ; nor can I now bring myself to quarrel
with it. Not only did they believe their accusation
just, — it probably was just ; at all events, they acted
justly by the light they had. So serious was the
alarm that the guards were doubled, the horses were
kept constantly under saddle and bridle, and the
men slept on their arms; while Pizarro in person
went the rounds every night to see that everything
was ready to meet the attack, which was expected
to take place at any moment.

Yet in this crisis the Spanish leader showed a
manly unwillingness even to seem treacherous. He
was a man of his word, as well as a humane man ;
and it was hard for him to break his promise to set
Atahualpa free, even when he was folly absolved by
Atahualpa's own utter violation of the spirit of the
contract. But it was impossible to withstand the
demands of his followers; he was responsible for
their lives as well as his own, and when it came
to a question between them and Atahualpa there
could be but one decision. Pizarro opposed, but
the army insisted, and at last he had to yield. Yet
even then, when the enemy might come at any
moment, he insisted upon a full and formal trial
for his prisoner, and saw that it was given. The
court found Atahualpa proven guilty of causing his

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a68 THB SPANISH PIONEERS.

brother's murder, and of conspiring against the
Spaniards, and condemned him to be executed that
very night. If there were any delay, the Indian
army might arrive in time to rescue their war-
captain, and that would greatly increase the odds
against the Spaniards. That night, therefore, in the
plaza of Caxamarca, Atahualpa was executed by the
garrote; and the next day he was buried from
the Church of St. Francis with the highest honors.

Again the Peruvians were taken by surprise, this
time by the death of Atahualpa. Without the direc-
tion of their war*captain and the hope of rescuing
him, they found themselves hesitating at a direct
attack upon the Spaniards. They stayed at a safe
distance, burning villages and hiding gold and other
articles which might " give comfort to the enemy ; "
and upon the whole, though the immediate danger
had been averted by the execution of the war-
captain, the outlook was still extremely ominous.
Pizarro, who did not understand the Peruvian titles
better than some of our own historians have done,
and in hope of bringing about a more peaceful feel-
ing, appointed Toparca, another son of Huayna
Capac, to be war-captain; but this appointment
did not have the desired effect.

It was now decided to undertake the long and
arduous march to Cuzco, the home and chief town
of the Inca tribe, of which they had heard such
golden stories. Early in September, 1533, Pizarro
and his army — now swelled by Almagro's force to
some four hundred men — set out from Caxamarca.

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ATAHUALPA'S TREACHERY, 269

It was a journey of great difficulty and danger. The
narrow, steep trails led along dizzy cliifs, across
bridges almost as difficult to walk as a hammock
would be, and up rocky heights where there were
only foot-holes for the agile llama. At Xauxa a
great number of Indians were drawn up to oppose
them, intrenched on the farther side of a freshet-
swollen stream. But the Spaniards dashed through
the torrent, and fell upon the savages so vigorously
that they presently gave way.

In this pretty valley Pizarro had a notion to found
a colony; and here he made a brief halt, sending
De Soto ahead with a scouting-party of sixty men.
De Soto began to find ominous signs at once. Vil-
lages had been burned and bridges destroyed, so
that the crossing of those awful quebradas was most
difficult. Wherever possible, too, the road had
been blocked with logs and rocks, so that the pas-
sage of the cavalry was greatly impeded. Near
Bilcas he had a sharp brush with the Indians ; and
though the Spaniards were victorious, they lost sev-
eral men. De Soto, however, resolutely pushed on.
Just as the wearied little troop was toiling up the
steep and winding defile of the Vilcaconga, the
wild whoop of the Indians rang out, and a host of
warriors sprang from their hiding-places behind
rock and tree, and fell with fury upon the Span-
iards. The trail was steep and narrow, the horses
could barely keep their footing; and under the
crash of this dusky avalanche rider and horse went
rolling down the steep. The Indians £urly swarmed

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2 70 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

upon the Spaniards like bees, trying to drag the sol-
diers from their saddles, even clinging desperately
to the horses' legs, and dealing blows with agile
strength. Farther up the rocky pathway was a level
space ; and De Soto saw that unless he could gain
this, all was lost. By a supreme effort of muscle and
will, he brought his little band to the top against such
heavy odds ; and after a brief rest, he made a charge
upon the Indians, but could not break that grim,
dark mass. Night came on, and the worn and bleed-
ing Spaniards — for few men or horses had escaped
without wounds from that desperate mel^e, and sev-
eral of both had been killed — rested as best they
might with weapons in their hands. The Indians
were fully confident of finishing them on the mor-
row, and the Spaniards themselves had little room
for hope to the contrary. But far in the night they
suddenly heard Spanish bugles in the pass below,
and a little later were embracing their unexpected
countrymen, and thanking God for their deliverance.
Pizarro, learning of the earlier dangers of their
march, had hurriedly despatched Almagro with a
considerable force of cavalry to help De Soto ; and
the reinforcement by forced marches arrived just
in the nick of time. The Peruvians, seeing in the
morning that the enemy was reinforced, pressed the
fight no further, and retreated into the mountains.
The Spaniards, moving on to a securer place, camped
to await Pizarro.

He soon came up, having left the treasure at
Xauxa, with forty men to guard it. But he was

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ATAHUALPA'S TREACHERY. 271

greatly troubled by the aspect of affairs. These
organized and audacious attacks by the enemy, and
the sudden death of Toparca under suspicious cir-
cumstances, led him to believe that Chalicuchima,
the second war-captain, was acting treacherously, —
as he very probably was. After rejoining Almagro,
Pizarro had Chalicuchima tried; and being found
guilty of treason, he was promptly executed. We
cannot help being horrified at the manner of the
execution, which was by fire ; but we must not be
too hasty in calling the responsible individual a
cruel man for all that. All such things must be
measured by comparison, and by the general spirit
of the age. The world did not then deem the stake
a cruelty; and more than a hundred years later,
when the world was much more enlightened. Chris-
tians in England and France and New England saw
no harm in that sort of an execution for certain
offences, — and surely we shall not say that our
Puritan forefathers were wicked and cruel men.
They hanged witches and whipped infidels, not from
cruelty, but from the blind superstition of their
time. It seems a hideous thing now, but it was not
thought so then; and we must not expect that
Pizarro should be wiser and better than the men
who had so many advantages that he had not. I
certainly wish that he had not allowed Chalicuchima
to be burned ; but I also wish that the shocking pages
of Salem and slavery could be blotted from our own
story. In neither case, however, would I brand Pizarro
as a monster, nor the Puritans as a cruel people.

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272 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

At this juncture, the Inca Indian Manco came
in gorgeous fashion to Pizarro and proposed an alli-
ance. He claimed to be the rightful war-chief, and
desired that the Spaniards recognize him as such.
His proposition was gladly accepted.

Moving onward, the Spaniards were again am-
bushed in a defile, but beat off their assailants ; and
at last entered Cuzco November 15,1533. It was the
largest Indian ** city " in the western hemisphere,
though not greatly larger than the pueblo of Mex-
ico ; and its superior buildings and furnishings filled
the Spaniards with wonder. A great deal of gold
was found in caves and other hiding-places. In one
spot were several large gold vases, gold and silver
images of llamas and human beings, and cloths
adorned with gold and silver beads. Among other
treasures Pedro Pizarro, an eye-witness and chroni-
cler, mentions ten rude " planks ** of silver twenty
feet long, a foot wide, and two inches thick. The
total treasure secured footed up 580,200 /^x^^ de
oro and 215,000 marks of silver, or an equivalent
of about jt 7,600,000.

Pizarro now formally crowned Manco as "ruler"
of Peru, and the natives seemed very well pleased.
Good Father Valverde was made bishop of Cuzco ;
a cathedral was founded ; and the devoted Spanish
missionaries began actively the work of educating
and converting the heathen, — a work which they
continued with their usual effectiveness.

Quizquiz, one of Atahualpa's subordinate war-
captains and a leader of no small prowess, still

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ATAHUALPA'S TREACHERY. 273

kept the field. Almagro with a few cavalry, and
Manco with his native followers, were sent out
and routed the hostiles; but Quizquiz held out
until put to death by his own men.

In March, 1534, Pedro de Alvarado, Cortez's
gallant lieutenant, who had been rewarded for his
services in Mexico by being made governor of
Guatemala, landed and marched on Quito, only to
discover that it was in Pizarro's territory. A
compromise was made between him and Pizarro;
Alvarado received a compensation for his fruitless
expedition, and went back to Guatemala.

Pizarro was now very busy in developing the new
country he had conquered, and in laying the comer-
stone of a nation. January 6, 1535, he founded the
Ciudad de los Reyes, the City of the Kings, in the
lovely valley of Rimac. The name was soon changed
to Lima ; and Lima, the capital of Peru, remains to
this day. The remarkable conqueror was now show-
ing another side of his character, — his genius as an
organizer and administrator of affairs. He addressed
himself to the task of upbuilding Lima with energy,
and his direction of all the affairs of his young gov-
ernment showed great foresight and wisdom.

Meantime Hernando, his brother, had been sent
to Spain with the treasure for the Crown, arriving
there in January, 1534. Besides the " royal fifth ''^
he carried half a XDiVLion pesos de oro belonging to
those adventurers who had decided to enjoy their
money at home. Hernando made a great impression
in Spain. The Crown fully confirmed all former
18

\

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274 ^^^ SPANISH PIONEERS.

grants to Pizarro, and extended his territory seventy
leagues to the south ; while Almagro was empowered
to conquer Chile (then called New Toledo), begin-
ning at the south end of Pizarro's domain and run-
ning south two hundred leagues. Hernando was
knighted, and given command of an expedition, —
one of the largest and best equipped that had sailed
from Spain. He and his followers had a terrible
time in getting back to Peru, and many perished
on the way.

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POUNDING A NATION 275

VIII.

FOUNDING A NATION. — THE SIEGE OF
CUZCO.

BUT before Hernando reached Peru, one of his
company carried thither to Almagro the news
of his promotion; and this prosperity at once
turned the head of the coarse and unprincipled
soldier. Forgetful of all Pizarro's favors, and that
Pizarro had made him all he was, the false friend at
once set himself up as master of Cuzco.

It was shameful ingratitude and rascality, and
very nearly precipitated the Spaniards into a civil
war. But the forbearance of Pizarro bridged the
difficulty at last; and on the 12th of June, 1535, the
two captains renewed their friendly agreement.
Almagro soon marched off to try — and to fail in —
the conquest of Chile ; and Pizarro turned his atten-
tion again to developing his conquered province.

In the few years of his administrative career
Pizarro achieved remarkable results. He founded
several new towns on the coast, naming one Trux-
illo in memory of his birthplace. Above all, he
delighted in upbuilding and beautifying his favorite
city of Lima, and promoting commerce and other
necessary factors in the development of the new

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276 THE SPANISH PIONBBRS.

nation. How wise were his provisions is attested
by a striking contrast. When the Spaniards first
came to Caxamarca a pair of spurs was worth I250
in gold ! A few years before Pizarro's death the
first cow brought to Peru was sold for 1 10,000 ; two
years later the best cow in Peru could be bought
for less than I200. The first barrel of wine sold for
1 1 600 ; but three years later native wine had taken
the place of imported, and was to be had in Lima
at a cheap price. So it was with almost everything.
A sword had been worth I350 ; a cloak, I500 ; a
pair of shoes, I200; a horse, |io,ooo; but under
Pizarro's surprising business ability it took but two
or three years to place the staples of life within the
reach of every one. He encouraged not only com-
merce but home industry, and developed agriculture,
mining, and the mechanical arts. Indeed, he was
carrying out with great success that general Spanish
principle that the chief wealth of a country is not its
gold or its timber or its lands, but its people. It
was everywhere the attempt of the Spanish Pioneers
to uplift and Christianize and civilize the savage
inhabitants, so as to make them worthy citizens of
the new nation, instead of wiping them off the face
of the earth to make room for the new-comers, as
has been the general fashion of some European
conquests. Now and then there were mistakes and
crimes by individuals; but the great principle of
wisdom and humanity marks the whole broad course
of Spain, — a course which challenges the admira-
tion of every manly man.

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THE SIEGE OP CUZCO, 277

While Pizarro was busy with his work, Manco
showed his trae colors. It is not at all improbable
that he had meditated treachery throughout, and
had made alliance with the Spaniards simply to get
them in his power. At all events he now suddenly
slipped away, without provocation, to raise forces to
attack the Spaniards, thinking to overcome them
while they were scattered at work in their various
colonies. The loyal Indians warned Juan Pizarro,
who captured and imprisoned Manco. Just then
Hernando Pizarro arrived from Spain, and Francisco
gave him command at Cuzco. The wily Manco
fooled Hernando into setting him free, and at once
began to rally his forces. Juan was sent out with
sixty mounted men, and finally met Manco's thou-
sands at Yucay. In a terrible struggle of two days
the Spaniards held their ground, though with heavy
loss, and then were startled by a messenger with
the news that Cuzco itself was besieged by the sav-
ages. By a forced march they got back to the city
by nightfall, and found it surrounded by a vast host.
The Indians suffered them to enter, — evidently
desiring to have all their mice in one trap, — and
then closed in upon the doomed city.

Hernando and Juan were now shut up in Cuzco.
They had less than two hundred men, while outside,
the slopes far and near were dotted with the camp-
fires of the enemy, — so innumerable as to seem
" like a sky full of stars." Early in the morning
(in February, 1536), the Indians attacked. They
hurled into the town fire-balls and burning arrows,

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tyS THB SPANISH PtONBBRS.

and soon had let fire to the thatched xoo& The
Spaniards could not extinguish the fire, which raged
for several dajrs. The only thing that saved them
from being smothered or roasted to death was the
puUic square, in which they huddled. They made
several salliesi but the Indians had driven stakes
and prepared other obstacles in which the horses
became entangled.

The Spaniards, however, cleared the road under
a fierce fire and made a gallant charge, which was
as gallantly resisted. The Indians were expert not
only with the bow but with the nata as well, and
many Spaniards were lassoed and slain. The charge
drove the savages back somewhat, but at heavy cost
to the Spaniards, who had to return to town. They
had no chance for rest ; the Indians kept up their
harrying assaults, and the outlook was very black.
Francisco Pizarro was besieged in Lima ; Xauxa was
also blockaded; and the Spaniards in the smaller
colonies had been overpowered and slain. Their
ghastly beads were hurled into Cuzco, and rolled at
the feet of their despairing countrymen. The case
seemed so hopeless that many were for trying to cut
through the Indians and escape to the coast ; but
Hernando and Juan would not hear of it

Upon the hill overlooking Cuzco was — and is
to this day — the remarkable Inca fortress of the
Sacsahuaman. It is a cyclopean work. On the side
toward the city, the almost impregnable bluff was
made fully impregnable by a huge wall twelve hun-
dred feet long and of great thickness. On the other

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THE SIEGE OF CUZCO, 379

side of the hill the gentler slope wis guarded by two
walls, one above the other, and each twelve hundred
feet long. The stones in these walls were fitted to-
gether with surprising skill ; and some single stones
were thirty-eight feet long, eighteen feet wide, and
six feet thick ! And, most wonderfiil of all, they
had been quarried at least twelve miles away, and
then transported by the Indians to their present
site I The top of the hill was further defended by
great stone towers.

This remarkable aboriginal fortress waa in the
hands of the Indians, and enabled them to harass the
beleaguered Spaniards much more effectively. It
was plain that they must be dislodged. As a prelim-
inary to this forlorn hope, the Spaniards sallied out in
three detachments, commanded by Gonzalo Pizarro,
Gabriel de Rojas, and Hernando Ponce de Leon, to
beat off the Indians. The fighting was thoroughly
desperate. The Indians tried to crush their enemies
to the earth by the mad rush of numbers ; but at
last the Spaniards forced the stubborn foe to give
ground, and fell back to the city.

For the task of storming the Sacsahuaman Juan
Pizarro was chosen, and the forlorn hope could
not have been intrusted to a braver cavalier.
Marching out of Cuzco about sunset with his little
force, Juan went off as if to forage ; but as soon
as it was dark he turned, made a detour, and hur-
ried to the Sacsahuaman. The great Indian fort
was dark and still. Its gateway had been closed
with great stones, built up like the solid masoniy ;

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28o THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

and these the Spaniards had much difficulty in re-
moving without noise. When at last they passed
through and were between the two giant walls, a
host of Indians fell upon them. Juan left half his
force to engage the savages, and with the other half
opened the gateway in the second wall which had
been similarly closed. When the Spaniards suc-
ceeded in capturing the second wall, the Indians re-
treated to their towers ; and these last and deadliest
strongholds were to be stormed. The Spaniards
assaulted them with that characteristic valor which
faltered at no odds of Nature or of man, but at the
first onset met an irreparable loss. Brave Juan
Pizarro had been wounded in the jaw, and his hel-
met so chafed the wound that he snatched it off and
led the assault bareheaded. In the storm of Indian
missiles a rock smote him upon his unprotected
skull and felled him to the ground. Yet even as he
lay there in his agony and weltering in his blood, he
shouted encouragement to his men, and cheered them
on, — Spanish pluck to the last. He was tenderly
removed to Cuzco and given every care; but the
broken head was past mending, and after a few days
of agony the fiickeling life went out forever.

The Indians still held their stronghold ; and leav-
ing his brother Gonzalo in charge of beleaguered
Cuzco, Hernando Pizarro sallied out with a new
force to attack the towers of the Sacsahuaman. It
was a desperate assault, but a successful one at last.
One tower was soon captured ; but in the other and
stronger one the issue was long doubtful. Conspic-

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THE SIEGE OP CUZCO. a8l

uous among its defenders was a huge and fearless
Indian, who toppled over the ladders and struck
down the Spaniards as fast as they could scale the
tower. His valor filled the soldiers with admira-
tion. Heroes themselves, they could see and re-
spect heroism even in an enemy. Hernando gave
strict orders that this brave Indian should not be
hurt. He must be overpowered, but not struck
down. Several ladders were planted on different
sides of the tower, and the Spaniards made a simul-
taneous rush, Hernando shouting to the Indian that
he should be preserved if he would yield. But the
swarthy Hercules, seeing that the day was lost, drew
his mantle over his head and face, and sprang off
the lofty tower, to be dashed to pieces at its base.

The Sacsahuaman was captured, though at heavy
cost, and thereby the offensive power of the savages
was materially lessened. Hernando left a small gar-
rison to hold the fortress and returned to the invested
city, there with his companions to bear the cruel for-
tunes of the siege. For five months the siege of
Cuzco lasted ; and they were five months of great
suffering and danger. Manco and his host hung
upon the starving city, fell with deadly fury upon
the parties that were driven by hunger to sally out
for food, and harassed the survivors incessantly. All
the outlying Spanish colonists had bieen massacred,
and matters grew daily darker.

Francisco Pizarro, beleaguered in Lima, had
beaten off the Indians, thanks to the favorable na-
ture of the country ; but they hovered always about.

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282 THB SPANISH PIONEERS.

He was full of anxiety for his men at Cuzco, and
sent out four successive expeditions, aggregating
four hundred men, to their relief. But the rescue-
parties were successively ambushed in the mountain
passes, and nearly all were slain. It is said that
seven hundred Spaniards perished in that unequal
war. Some of the men begged to be allowed to
cut through to the coast, take ship, and escape this
deadly land ; but Pizarro would not hear to such
abandonment of their brave countrymen at Cuzco,
and was resolved to stand by them and save them,
or share their fate. To remove the temptation to
selfish escape, he sent off the ships, with letters to
the governors of Panama, Guatemala, Mexico, and
Nicaragua detailing his desperate situation and
asking aid.

At last, in August, Manco raised the siege of
Cuzco. His great force was eating up the country ;
and unless he set the inhabitants to their planting,
famine would presently be upon him. So, sending
most of the Indians to their farms, he left a large
force to watch and harass the Spaniards, and him-
self with a strong garrison retired to one of his forts.
The Spaniards now had better success in their fora3rs
for food, and could better stave off starvation ; but
the watchful Indians were constantly attacking them,
cutting off men and small parties, and giving them
no respite. Their harassment was so sleepless and
so disastrous that to check it Hernando conceived
the audacious plan of capturing Manco in his strong-
hoki. Setting out with eighty of his best horsemen

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THE SIEGE OP CUZCO. 2S3

and a few infantry, he made a long, circuitous march
with great caution, and without giving the alarm.
Attacking the fortress at daybreak, he thought to
take it unawares ; but behind those grim walls the
Indians were watching for him, and suddenly rising
they showered down a perfect hail of missiles upon
the Spaniards. Three times with the courage of
despair the handful of soldiers pressed on to the
assault, but three times the outnumbering savages
drove them back. Then the Indians opened their
sluice-gates above and flooded the field; and the
Spaniards, reduced and bleeding, had to beat a
retreat, hard pressed by the exultant foe* In this
dark hour, Pizarro was suddenly betrayed by the
man who, above all, should have been loyal to
him, — the coarse traitor Almagro.

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284 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

IX.

THE WORK OF TRAITORS.

ALMAGRO had penetrated Chile, suffering great
hardships in crossing the mountains. Again
he showed the white feather ; and, discouraged by
the very beginning, he turned and marched back to
Peru. He seems to have concluded that it would
be easier to rob his companion and benefactor than
to make a conquest of his own, — especially since
he learned how Pizarro was now beset. Pizarro,
learning of his approach, went out to meet him.
Manco fell upon the Spaniards on the way, but was
repulsed after a hot fight.

Despite Pizarro's manly arguments, Almagro would
not give up his plans. He insisted that he should
be given Cuzco, the chief city, pretending that it was
south of Pizarro's territory. It was really within the
limits granted Pizarro by the Crown, but that would
have made no difference with him. At last a truce
was made until a commission could measure and
determine where Pizarro's southern boundary lay.
Meantime Almagro was bound by a solemn oath to
keep his hands off. But he was not a man to regard
his oath or his honor ; and on the dark and stormy
night of April 8, 1537, he seized Cuzco, killed the

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THE WORK OP TRAITORS, 285

guards, and made Hernando and Gonzalo Pizarro
prisoners. Just then Alonso de Alvarado was com-
ing with a force to the relief of Cuzco ; but being
betrayed by one of his own officers, he was captured
With all his men by Almagro.

At this critical juncture, Pizarro was strengthened
by the arrival of his old supporter, the licentiate
Espinosa, with two hundred and fifty men, and a
shipload of arms and provisions from his great cousin
Cortez. He started for Cuzco, but at the overpow-
ering news of Almagro's wanton treachery, retreated
to Lima and fortified his little capital. He was
clearly anxious to avert bloodshed ; and instead of
marching with an army to punish the traitor, he
sent an embassy, including Espinosa, to try to bring
Almagro to decency and reason. But the vulgar
soldier was impervious to such arguments. He not
only refused to give up stolen Cuzco, but coolly
announced his determination to seize Lima also.
Espinosa suddenly and conveniently died in Alma-
gro's camp, and Hernando and Gonzalo Pizarro
would have been put to death but for the efforts
of Diego de Alvarado (a brother of the hero of
the Noche Triste), who saved Almagro from add-
ing this cruelty to his shame. Almagro marched
down to the coast to found a port, leaving Gonzalo
under a strong guard in Cuzco, and taking Hernando
with him as a prisoner. While he was building his
town, which he named after himself, Gonzalo Pizarro
and Alonso de Alvarado made their escape from
Cuzco and reached Lima in safety.

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286 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

Francisco Pizarro still tried to keep from blows
with the man who, though now a traitor, had been
once his comrade. At last an interview was ar-
ranged, and the two leaders met at Mala. Alraagro
greeted hypocritically the man he had betrayed;
but Pizarro was of different fibre. He did not wish
to be enemies with former friends; but as little
could he be friend again to such a person. He
met Almagro's lying welcome with dignified cool-
ness. It was agreed that the whole dispute should
be left to the arbitration of Fray Francisco de Boba-
dilla, and that both parties should abide by his de-
cision. The arbitrator finally decided that a vessel
should be sent to Santiago to measure southward
from there, and determine Pizarro's exact southern
boundary. Meantime Almagro was to give up
Cuzco and release Hernando Pizarro. To this
perfectly just arrangement the usurper refused to
agree, and again violated every principle of hopor.
Hernando Pizarro was in imminent danger of being
murdered ; and Francisco, bound to save his brother
at any cost, bought him free by giving up Cuzco.

At last, worn past endurance by the continued
treachery of Almagro, Pizarro sent him warning that
the truce was at an end, and marched on Cuzco.
Almagro made every effort to defend his stolen
prize, but was outgeneralled at every step. He was
shattered by a shameful sickness, the penalty of his
base life, and had to intrust the campaign to his
lieutenant Orgoiiez. On the 26th of April, 1538,
the loyal Spaniards, under Hernando and Gonzalo

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THE WORK OF TRAITORS. 287

Pizarro, Alonso de Alvarado, and Pedro de Valdivia,
met Almagro's forces at Las Salinas. Hernando
had Mass said, aroused his men by recounting the
conduct of Almagro, and led the charge upon the
rebels. A terrible struggle ensued; but at last
Orgonez was slain, and then his followers were soon
routed. The victors captured Cuzco and made the
arch-traitor prisoner. He was tried and convicted
of treason, — for in being traitor to Pizarro, he had
also been a traitor to Spain, — and was sentenced
to death. The man who could be so physically
brave in some circumstances was a coward at the
last. He begged like a craven to be spared ; but
his doom was just, and Hernando Pizarro refused
to reverse the sentence. Francisco Pizarro had
started for Cuzco; but before he arrived Almagro
was executed, and one of the basest treacheries in
history was avenged. Pizarro was shocked at the
news of the execution ; but he could not feel other-
wise than that justice had been done. Like the
man he was, he had Diego de Almagro, the traitor's
illegitimate son, taken to his own house, and cared
for as his own child.

Hernando Pizarro now returned to Spain. There
he was accused of cruelties ; and the Spanish gov-
ernment, prompter than any other in punishing
offences of the sort, threw him into prison. For
twenty years the gray-haired prisoner lived behind
the bars of Medina del Campo ; and when he came
out his days of work were over, though he lived to
be a hundred years old.

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288 THE SPANISH PIONEERS.

The state of affairs in Peru, though improved by
the death of Almagro and the crushing of his wicked
rebellion, was still far from secure. Manco was
developing what has since come to be regarded as
the characteristic Indian tactics. He had learned
that the original fashion of rushing upon a foe
in mass, fairly to smother him under a crush of
bodies, would not work against discipline. So he
took to the tactics of harassment and ambuscade,
, — the policy of killing from behind, which our
Apaches learned in the same way. He was always
hanging about the Spaniards, like a wolf about the
flock, waiting to pounce upon them whenever they
were off their guard, or when a few were separated
from the main body. It is the most telling mode of
warfare, and the hardest to combat. Many of the
Spaniards fell victims ; in a single swoop he cut off
and massacred thirty of them. It was useless to
pursue him, — the mountains gave him an impreg-
nable retreat. As the only deliverance from this
harassment, Pizarro adopted a new policy. In the
most dangerous districts he founded military posts ;
and around these secure places towns grew rapidly,
and the people were able to hold their own. Emi-
grants were coming to the country, and Peru was
developing a civilized nation out of them and the
uplifted natives. Pizarro imported all sorts of Euro-
pean seeds, and farming became a new and civilized
industry.

Besides this development of the new little nation,
Pizarro was spreading the limits of exploration and

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THE WORK OF TRAITORS, 289

conquest. He sent out brave Pedro de Valdivia, —
that remarkable man who conquered Chilei and
made there a history which would be found full of
thrilling interest, were there room to recount it here.
He sent out, too, his brother Gonzalo as governor of
Quito, in 1540. That expedition was one of the
most astounding and characteristic feats of Spanish
exploration in the Americas ; and I wish space per-
mitted the iiill story of it to enter here. For nearly
two years the knightly leader and his little band
suffered superhuman hardships. They froze to
death in the snows of the Andes, and died of heat
in the desert plains, and fell in the forest swamps
of the upper Amazon. An earthquake swallowed
an Indian town of hundreds of houses before their
eyes. Their way through the tropic forests had to
be hewn step by step. They built a little brigantine
with incredible toil, — Gonzalo working as hard as
any, — and descended the Napo to the Amazon.
Francisco de Orellana and fifty men could not rejoin
their companions, and floated down the Amazon to
the sea, whence the survivors got to Spain. Gonzalo
at last had to struggle back to Quito, — a journey
of almost matchless horror. Of the three hundred
gallant men who had marched forth so blithely in
1540 (not including Orellana's fifty), there were but
eighty tattered skeletons who staggered into Quito
in June, 1542. This may give some faint idea of
what they had been through.

Meanwhile an irreparable calamity had befallen the
young nation, and robbed it at one dastardly blow of
19

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290 THB SPANISH PIONBBRS,

one of its most heroic figures. The baser followers
who had shared the treachery of Almagro had been
pardoned, and well-treated ; but their natures were
unchanged, and they continued to plot against the
wise and generous man who had '' made '' them all.
Even Diego de Almagro, whom Pizarro had reared
tenderly as a son, joined the conspirators. The
ringleader was one Juan de Herrada. On Sunday,
June 26, 1 541, the band of assassins suddenly forced
their way into Pizarro's house. The unarmed guests
fled for help ; and the faithful servants who resisted
were butchered. Pizarro, his half-brother Martinez
de Aldintara, and a tried officer named Francisco
de Chaves had to bear the brunt alone. Taken all
by surprise as they were, Pizarro and Alcdntara tried
to hurry on their armor, while Chaves was ordered
to secure the door. But the mistaken soldier half
opened it to parley with the villains, and they ran
him through, and kicked his corpse down the stair-
case. Aldmtara sprang to the door and fought he-
roically, undaunted by the wounds that grew thicker
on him. Pizano, hurling aside the armor there
was no time to don, flung a cloak over his left arm
for a shield, and with the right grasping the good
sword that had flashed in so many a desperate fray
he sprang like a lion upon the wolfish gang. He
was an old man now ; and years of such hardship
and exposure as few men living nowadays ever
dreamed of had told on him. But the great heart
was not old, and he fought with superhuman valor
and superhuman strength. His swift sword struck

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THE WORK OF TRAITORS. 291

down the two foremost, and for a moment the trai-
tors were staggered. But Alcdntara had fallen ; and
taking turns to wear out the old hero, the cowards
pressed him hard. For several minutes the unequal
fight went on in that narrow passage, slippery with
blood, — one gray-haired man with flashing eyes
against a score of desperadoes. At last Herrada
seized Narvaez, a comrade, in his arms, and behind
this living shield rushed against Pizarro. Pizarro
ran Narvaez through and through ; but at the same
instant one of the crowding butchers stabbed him
in the throat. The conqueror of Peru reeled and
fell; and the conspirators plunged their swords in
his body. But even then the iron will kept the
body to the last thought of a great heart ; and call-
ing upon his Redeemer, Pizarro drew a cross with
bloody finger upon the floor, bent and kissed the
sacred symbol, and was dead.

So lived and so died the man who began Hfe as
the swineherd of Truxillo, and who ended it the
conqueror of Peru. He was the greatest of the
Pioneers ; a man who from meaner beginnings rose
higher than any ; a man much slandered and ma-
ligned by the prejudiced; but nevertheless a man
whom history will place in one of her highest niches,
— a hero whom every lover of heroism will one day
delight to honor.

Such was the conquest of Peru. Of the romantic
history which followed in Peru I cannot tell here, —
of the lamentable fall of brave Gonzalo Pizarro;

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393 THE SPANISH PIONEERS,

of the remarkable Pedro de la Gasca ; of the
great Mendoza's vice-royal promotion; nor of a
hundred other chapters of fascinating history. I
have wished only to give the reader some idea of
what a Spanish conquest really was, in superlative
heroism and hardship. Pizarro's was the greatest
conquest ; but there were many others which were
not inferior in heroism and suffering, but only in
genius ; and the story of Peru was very much the
story of two thirds of the Western Hemisphere.

THE END.

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